S.P.E.C.K.S.: February 2012

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Are You a Complainer?

Please don't think I'm being judgmental with that question, it is aimed right at my heart but knowing people, I'm kinda figuring that there is at least one other person on the face of this planet that is also a complainer. So, as this is not aimed at you, but at me, if it manages to find it's way to you I hope it will do you some good just as it did me!

Here is a picture, taken from my wonderful iPhone, don't you just love how crisp the picture is? Thank you again to my wonderful husband for my wonderful birthday gift . . . truly it is the gift that keeps on giving. Every day I use it I love him for it! Ok back to the picture! This was yesterday's page.

Everyday is different. I've only had one day that I didn't put something down, but I'm pretty sure my bad attitude had a lot to do with that. Some days, it's very little, some days it's . . . well a picture is worth a thousand words!

Yes, I feel like I should have used a red pen today to represent all the blood pouring out of my sinful body from being so cut up by this wonderful King James Bible! The whole thing, all three chapters kept forcing me to realize what a complaining tongue I have! It's shameful! I'll highlight some of the things in case it's really hard to read this page.

1. In Numbers 11:1 it says, "And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord: and the Lord heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the Lord burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost part of the camp." It is interesting to not that even though the fire burnt among them, it only consumed those on the fringe.

a. Don't be a fringe person. Get in and commit to your church. Be %157 person of a christian! In every way, every day be ALL God wants you to be! Read your Bible, Be faithful to church, Give your tithe and above, Pray, Witness, Help those around you for Christ's sake!

b. If you are %157 christian don't complain killing those who are the fringe. I think one of the most destructive things I've seen since being in the ministry is people on the inside complaining and those who are considering coming to church or getting involved dropping out completely. If you have a position in the church, even if it's only being the pianist, don't complain. Support the pastor NOT just with lip service but with your actions. Realize that yes, he and his wife ARE human, allow them to make mistakes. Realize that it's taking you a LOT longer to get where you need to be and they have to put up with a LOT of your mistakes, quietly and sweetly. They make ONE major mistake and that's it, no more, you refuse to listen to them! SHAME on you! Have you even looked in the mirror? Let your pastor and his wife influence you. Yes, see how God works in their lives, in spite of their flaw and even through their flaws!

2. Numbers 11:11 I wonder how many leaders have ever felt as Moses felt? "And Moses said unto the Lord, Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant? and wherefore have I not found favor in they sight, that thou latest the burden of all this people on me?" We can get all self-righteous here and think, Wow Moses, why would you even say this about the job God has given you! But this verse also begs the question as a follower how many times have I made the leader feel this way? Don't make the leader regret serving God! If you are currently complain, spreading strife, not following, then STOP!

3. Numbers 11:14-17 I love what Moses says here: "I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me." I love what God does here. He doesn't say, that's it, you're done, when Moses realized he couldn't do it alone! God give his 70 men who follow Moses. God allows Moses to transfer his leadership, vision and burden to these men. This does two things, it gives Moses a break, and it multiplies Moses' influence! We need to realize that we can do nothing on our own and truly it is ALL God and nothing of us!

4. Numbers 11:21-23 The people are complaining for meat and God says they are going to get some. Moses asks if they are going to have to kill all their flocks or hater all the fish and God asks Moses an important question, "Is the Lord's hand waxed short?" You know, we still serve the same God today that Moses served. Do you have an impossible task ahead of you? Is his hand shortened? There is a passage and I couldn't find it that talks specifically about his hand not being shortened or else I'm hallucinating and it was a sermon I heard once but anyways, I didn't find two verses that talking about the Lord's hand, Philippians 4:5 says, "The Lord is at hand." and Psalms 16:8 says, "I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved." God's hand is NOT shortened! He still provides! but . . .

5. I think this is so sad. One thing I determined as a teenager that I wanted to learn from my mistakes the FIRST time and because I was going to make so many in my life time I wanted to learn from ones from those I come into contact with kinda figuring I could save time and not have to make this mistakes as well! But here you find, first part of Numbers 11 that they are complaining and God sends a fire that consumes the fringe people . . . but the people don't learn! They continue to complain for meat and God hears them and He gives them what they THINK they want. He gives them quail and it talks about how greedy these people were filling up on quail and piling it up! As they are chewing and the quail is between their teeth God sends a plague killing those who lusted after the quail! 1st lesson, Don't complain, 2nd lesson, Don't continue to complain!

6. I think Numbers 12:3-10 is important to note, God takes it VERY seriously when you speak against HIS man! Miriam is given leprosy and put out of the camp fro 7 days. The whole camp was stopped for 7 days while they waited for Miriam. If you dare to complain about God's man He does hear and He will take care of you! But not just you, you could hinder a WHOLE group of people from being able to move forward! I have witnessed several occasions where people have complained about my husband and God has struck them that day, the very next day, and often within that same weak, with CRAZY stuff! Stuff they had been trying to get heeled and now permanently damaged. Stuff that they had never had problems with and BAM in the hospital! It is very serious to complain about God's man! He WILL deal with you! So if you are going to remember Miriam and just shut up!

WOW!!!! These whole three chapters were so convicting! All this complaining . . . they kept complaining and specifically had said they wanted the garlic, onions and fish they had had in Egypt. What is interesting to note was that it was LITERALLY just around the corner but instead they settle for quail. Then they have to wait 7 days for Miriam. The cleansing they had experience just a few chapters before was all gone. They had been spending their boldness complaining about God and what he was doing and about his man. Now they are faced with a REAL problem, not a perceived problem! And what do they do? They get scared. Complaining evidently leaves you weak and unable to fight the battles that WILL most definitely be brought in your life! I don't want to be like these Israelites. I want to learn from their mistakes and instead of complaints I want my mouth to be filled with praises for my God. Psalms 71:8 says, "Let my mouth be filled with they praise and with thy honor all the day." When our mouth is FILLED with God's praise, we won't have room for complaints!

The Trumpet of the Lord . . .

Yesterday I didn't get to my Bible reading until late last night. Between most of the night filled with a sick child, sleeping when they did into the late morning and errands that HAD to be run it was a long time. I was a little tired but very expectant to see what God had for me! In Numbers 9:10 God is giving some of the law and he says this, "And if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you, then ye shall blow an alarm with trumpets; and ye shall be remembered before the Lord your God, and ye shall be saved from your enemies." Do you suppose they remembered this verse when they FINALLY got to Jericho and God tells them to walk around the walls for seven days and on the seventh day walk around seven times and on the last time blow trumpets and shout! Or do you suppose that Gideon tucked this little nugget away when he went to defeat the enemy. Here he was told, "Don't bring the strong, don't bring everyone and when you get there you get a lamp and a trumpet. You're going to break the lamp and blow the trumpet and that's it, you don't even need your sword." HUH?! I'll tell you this, if he did know this verse I'm sure it bolstered him to obey God because God gives a very clear promise here!

Now I know what your'e thinking, I don't go to war, not physically and if I do they don't use trumpets any more, it's called cell phones, walkie talkies, computers, etc. I know that! The principle here is, "Knowing God's promises makes us better equipped to obey His words!" God may have given you a strange task, i.e. "Go to a strange land, to a strange people, change your way of thinking, change your traditions, change who you are and spend your life telling people about God." A promise that would help you is "Lo, I am with you alway even unto the end of the world", part of Matthew 28:19, 20. What about a strange task such as, "Even in this corrupt world, where Disney channel sets the standard of how children and teens should behave. Where television continually makes not just the father to be an idiot but the mother as well and that children are now becoming the saviors of their families, even amidst all this wickedness God wants you to raise your children, to love Him and to serve Him." Several verses come to mind, Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." or Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." or Proverbs 28:1 "The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion."

Whatever God has given you to be or to do, don't despair, there is a promise in the Bible for you to claim, actually there are probably more than one! Go read your Bible and find them!

Saturday, February 25, 2012

The Nazarite Call for All . . .

While reading in Numbers 6 today, I came across something Mr. Scofield said and then referenced . . . hold on because THIS is good!

In verse 2 we get introduced to a Nazarite. Scofield said, "There is a beautiful moral order in chapters 6 and 7: (Seperation 6:1-12) (Worship 6:13-21) (Blessing 6:22-27) and (Service 7:1-89)" . Then Mr. Scofield put this passage to reference, Hebrews 13:12-16. So I headed over there and rather than explain it and risk you looking it up in a wrong version I'm going to put it out here in the King James Version for you:

Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. For here have we not continuing city, but we seek one to come. By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

Don't you just love how the Bible fits together and when it commentates on itself so beautifully! We find a N.T. passage for us. I heard someone tell me just this week, "The Bible said such and such in the O.T. but I had to have a N.T. passage because I knew that didn't apply to me in the O.T.. So for all you . . . people who have been misled out there in thinking only the N.T. applies to you this Hebrews passage is your calling to be a Nazarite - in a sense!

God wants us to be separated from the world, living in the world but not of the world. He wants us to worship Him and as we do He will bless us. If we are living clean lives pleasing to the Lord that will bring His blessing. But that is not where it stops! We have too many people SITTING in our church pews getting clean and getting fat but not serving God. People WAKE UP . . . we need to serve God, that is key to pleasing Him! Don't do it half heartedly or on YOUR terms! Serve God with everything you have and in every way HE wants you to!

Numbers . . .

I'm reading my bible through chronologically this year . . . LOVING it! If you have never read your Bible through that way I highly recommend it! I am at the start of Numbers. I must confess, Leviticus, Numbers, and Dueteronomy, can get me down. Then you have Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Lamentations to look forward to, but something that has really helped me is as I've stated in earlier posts to read with a purpose, but also to read a study Bible. I'm currently reading a Scofield . . . the old one. Yes I have found a couple of occasions where I didn't agree with Mr. Scofield, but that keeps me sharp and makes me pay attention. On the whole he has been a great help. Did you realize that he was a pastor who designed this study Bible with his congregation in mind. As you read it you can definitely see the heart of the pastor coming through!

Yesterday I was in Numbers 4 and I was a little discouraged because the day before I was in Numbers 3 and didn't get ONE thing! Not one thing to write down . . . I was sad. I was also not paying attention and rushing through and it was all names so I read even quicker so I'm sure it wasn't my Bible's fault. But that did spur me to yesterday to pray and ask God to give me something as I read. I expectantly opened my Bible to Numbers 4 and guess what . . . MORE names! And it was all about take these people from 30 to 50 years old and number them. Takes so and so from 30 to 50 and number them. My heart cried out to God and said, Please speak to me . . . I can't take another day like yesterday and as I read something struck me.

There were people in there God named and gave them a very specific job. People like Kohath, Gershon, and Merari. He gave them jobs like putting up the curtain, taking it down. Insignificant jobs that no one would ever see! I saw in that chapter that God has a job for everyone. Some jobs are big and some are small. God has something for me and for you. And when you do that job for the Lord it is NOT insignificant. It is very important! Also though, if God has given you a job to do and you don't do it, it doesn't get done! You are the only one who can do the job that God has given you!

Wasn't that a blessing? I'm so thankful I didn't give up and stop reading! God wants to talk to us every day through his word, if we will only expect it and listen!

Thursday, February 16, 2012

S.P.E.C.K.S......Concluded

I have gotten a little busy lately, please forgive me. I'm finally concluding the S.P.E.C.K.S. introductory portion of this blog. After this I'll just talk about how God has spoken to me and what He has given me. My husband came across S.P.E.C.K.S. a long time ago. I actually don't know when I know when I first remember him using it and that was in Grand Rapids, MI when he was the assistant Pastor there. He gave this to the teens. We have since given it to other teens. It is very effective. It is a wonderful way to read a passage of scripture. It is not as involved as a chapter or book study of the Bible (which I will one day put in here) but none the less it is very effective for every day use. It's quick and can be done in under an 1/2 hour on the full Bible reading that would get you reading the Bible through in a year. This way of reading the Bible brings out things not seen. It also allows the reader to pay attention even during the boring parts - admit it, reading all those animals we're allowed to eat nowadays can be boring. But like I was doing today, it takes it just from academics to application and makes the Bible come alive!

For example I was reading today about those foods they were not allowed to eat. Why would God care what you eat? Scofield made a good point; He said that the Israelites were under a Theocratic government, meaning they didn't have a king or anyone that was ruling over them, just God. Because of that their ruler, God, couldn't just be concerned about their religious state, but also their social state, like a earthly ruler is concerned about. We still serve the same God today and He still is not just concerned about our religious state of mind but also our social and physical state! He wants to rule all of our life, not just our "Sunday Life"! Reading the Bible from the S.P.E.C.K.S. perspective caused me to see this and be able to write it out in a clear way that I will be able to remember it later on!

So are you ready to find out what S.P.E.C.K.S. are? The Following is a example of why my page looks like. I print off enough of these for a week. I usually do back to back so I won't use as much paper. You can also do this by hand in a notebook, but I found this was easier. I keep them in a three ring binder afterwards in sheet protectors although I supposed I could have done punched holes, but the sheet protectors go back to my college days, thank you Crown College!

Daily Bible Reading Passage: ______ Date: _____

Sins to forsake:__________________________________________________

Promises to claim:_________________________________________________

Examples to follow:______________________________________________

Commands to obey:_____________________________________________________

Knowledge to Note:_____________________________________________________

Stumbling blocks to avoid:________________________________________________

Isn't it great how most of these are application. Only 1 of the 6 parts are not application. the Knowledge to Note. I love that when I reading my Bible I'm looking for God to speak to me. I love this way of reading. I also added two more pages as shown below:

Prayer Requests for the Week of: ___________________

_______________________________ _______________________________

People to Encourage this Week

Name: Date/Activity:

_______________________________ _______________________________

At the end of this page I add this. I keep track of people I encourage and what I did for them. This does two things. As a Pastor's wife it gives me a goal and keeps me on track. Then I can keep track of who I'm encouraging and how often.

This has been the best thing! Literally every day I read my Bible I expect God to speak to me and you know what? He does! Doing my Bible reading has been great, there has not a day gone by this year, that I've not heard from God and that's going through Exodus and now Leviticus!

Again, if you are not reading your Bible on a consistent basis, start with this! It will encourage your soul!

Sunday, February 12, 2012

S.P.E.C.K.S......continued

Still don't have the pictures. . . one of the down falls of doing photography professionally. Our stuff comes last!
Back to the SPECKS: For two years I accumulated verses and got more and more excited about the things I was learning about God. I felt like I was actually starting to develop a relationship with Him. I was starting to see Him answer prayers in specific ways. I was seeing trials come into my life and not freaking out about them. That Summer our washer died and my husband tried to go find a job to buy us a new one but no one was hiring a pastor who couldn't work on Sundays. Then he asked me to consider working at JC Penny as a photographer, just seasonal to get enough for a dryer. It was agreed that I would only work until after the holidays. I went in and once again God provided and I got hired on the spot! That Christmas Season I was working 40 hours a week. It was crazy, then I got the flu. The really bad H1N1. One morning I was headed into work and it being a seasonal job I knew I couldn't call off but I was sick. Sick as a dog. I cried, I had my husband pray with me. I went down and weakly pulled out my notebook and needing strength I opened it to the "My God is my Strength" page. I read about 4 verses down when I realized not only does God give us strength but He IS my strength and (no, I'm not charismatic) but I literally felt strength come into me. I went to work all day on that strength. I did that for 3 days. It was amazing and I became a believer in the Bible and what it can do for you! I began to tell people what God had done and tried to get them to see the greatness of My God!

A few more weeks into it I suddenly realized that I should be praying, not this every moment as I catch a moment thing but actually praying! So remembering something that Bro. Bill Swain from a traveling group had come and told the teenagers. He taught on prayer and how he prays. He takes his hand and prays with the thumb remembering those closest to him. He prays with the pointer finger for those in authority for him. He prays for the tall finger for those furtherst away, aka missionaries. He prays for those spiritually and physically weak using his weakest finger the ring finger and he prays for himself using the pinkie finger remember that he should be the littlest! I did this for a few weeks and then I remembered something I had learned in dorm devos, ACTS. I was praying for things, circumstances, people but I was only asking God things, I wasn't getting to know Him! I started praying using ACTS. Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and finishing with Supplication. The book I was working on was great for Adoration. Every day I would pick a new attribute of God, read the verses on it and Praise God for who He was and specifically how I had seen that attribute in Him made real in my life!

Bro. Rick Flanders came to a church near us and we went to hear him preach. He preached on Isaiah 40, getting the presence of God in your life. He talked about making a highway for God to have easy access in your life. He talked about that passage about making a highway you have to make the high places low, the low places high, the crooked places straight, and the rough places smooth. He parrelled those to our lives and how the high places were places of pride that needed to be brought low. The low places were places of sin in our life that must be filled in with good things and gotten ride of the sin. The crooked places were the relationships we had that were not quite right and the rough places were places of character flaws that God has to smooth away.

After that sermon, my "fessing time" became real and I would ask God to reveal things in this way and boy did He but it didn't hurt near as much as I always thought it would and actually I felt so much better for having it gotten right!

All this combined with prayer and Bible reading I was gleaning so much from my daily time with God! It was alive, it IS fun, it is quick even though it may be over an hour. It is a time I can't think of going without!

This past year I have been doing something slightly different . . . S.P.E.C.K.S. and let me tell you. I come every day to my Bible expecting to be talked to from God and I have yet to go a day that that has not happened! I love reading my Bible. I wake up excited to get to it! I LOVE reading my Bible. I HATE when I wake up late and it takes me longer to get to my Bible reading! My time with God truly is the best part of my day! If you are not reading your Bible, start today. If your prayer time is not what it should be, confess it to God - it won't hurt that much, and go on and start! You won't regret it!

Next time I explain S.P.E.C.K.S. Thanks for sticking with my this long. After the next post, they shouldn't be that long!

Saturday, February 11, 2012

S.P.E.C.K.S......continued

So, where we at? Oh yes, the Baby shower. While in Michigan at a Baby shower of ALL things God spoke to me in such a direct and specific way! It was amazing. Mrs. Kaiser got up and spoke on her own personal devotions and how she accomplishes them. She told how she keeps a note book of things about God. They are all categorized and alphabetized. As she is reading she'll find a characteristic about God and she'll write out the whole verse under that particular heading. Take Psalms 19:14 for example. "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O God, my strength and my redeemer." What do we find out about our God in this verse? ........... Did you find it? ............. Did you find both of them? ............. God is our strength! Also God redeems. So you would make a page that had a heading of "My God is my strength". Oh, that part about my God that's important! Pastor Clarence Sexton in Powell, TN used to say nothing is dynamic until it's personal. So we write "My God" making our Heavenly Father not just something out there in space watching over us but Someone who is personal and cares about us!

But I digress, or more appropriately I get off track AGAIN! Back to the Bible reading. You make the Heading "My God is my strength" then you write out the entire verse on that sheet with the reference. But this verse also has two headings because we see "My God Redeems". So you would make a "My God Redeems" page and write out the entire verse under that.

This process has SEVERAL benefits! 1. You have a written record in your life of things God has done and will do for you. 2. When you are going through a trial you can reference a page that has to do with that particular thing and you will have the opportunity to see how Great you God truly is and if He did it for David, or Samuel, or Ruth, then He doesn't love them any more than He loves you and He'll do it for you as well! 3. Third thing this does is that as you have the opportunity to counsel others you'll have a whole arsenal of verses about your great God and more specifically just of few of the things He is more than capable of!

This way to read your Bible is kind of like getting to know someone you love in a more real way. For example, when I first started out cooking I determined as a young wife that one of the worst things I could do was to cook something for years that my husband hated so I would ask him and honestly get his opinion. It made me a better cook, but as I learned to cook more and more the things he liked it made me get to know him better. When we were dating I knew a lot about him talking to him so much but since I've been married I know him even better. I know about his past. I know about his dreams. I know his likes and dislikes. I know his character when presented with trials. I know how great a man he is and how he wants to serve the Lord. This didn't happen by accident. As you know any person you want to get to know and develop a relationship with you have to do it on purpose. It is never an accident! This way of reading the Bible is a purposeful endeavor bent on making you know your Christ more and what He is capable of, His character, and the things He is and can do!

I started immediately. I was at a friends house so I asked her for paper that very night and the next morning I pulled my Bible out and for the first time in years I was excited to see what would happen. It wasn't something I was dreading checking off my list . . . I couldn't wait to get to it! I started in Psalms, because the speaker had said that Psalms was chuck full of things about God. I thought I would do just one but the more I read, the more I found, the more excited I became. John Maxwell reiterated in one of his leadership books that if you do what you're supposed to do even if you don't want to do it you will eventually love doing it. Kind of like those dummies out there who love running . . . sorry if you are reading this and you love running. I'm sure with the first few runs they questioned the validity of this but now those same people LOVE running! That's what God did through my Bible reading. The first 9 months were torture! But I kept doing what I was supposed to do and God gave me the desire. Now I can't imagine going without reading my Bible. Oh I still occasionally miss, and I may not remember until late that night and then it all makes sense why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling. I have found I always have time to read my Bible. Things have a way of working out better after I've spent that time in God's word!

The Bible reading thing I did for 2 years. God really showed me amazing things through it! I am so thankful He led me to a Baby Shower to show me about Himself! Truly His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not His thoughts! If you are struggling with your Bible reading or you don't know what to do or where to go try this system. Pull out your King James Version, if you don't have a King James Version, go buy one they are the cheapest Bible out there because they are not copyrighted so no man is making money from their words! Get some notebook paper and get a three ring binder and start today!

Oh, yeah, one more thing I did was to make my note book pretty. I'll post a picture next time. In today's society we spend SO much money on things that a little $3 binder and a $1 pack of paper are NOT going to make that much of an impression. So I got some green and brown scrapbooking paper and decorated my notebook. It made it pretty and made me want to look at it. If you're a man you might want to get a manly picture of your deer you shot and place it on the front of your notebook! You can get those notebooks that have the clear pocket in the front.

Once you start this your life will never be the same! Next time I'll tell you how God took this from excitement, intrigue, and curiosity to truly LIFE changing!

Friday, February 10, 2012

S.P.E.C.K.S.

I want to share my journey with you. Ha Ha, even as I write this I think it may take awhile so buckle up! But hopefully it will be worth the ride and it will bring glory to God as a result. I don't speak from thinking I have anything great, because I don't it is ALL God. But I want to share with you this journey of faith and what S.P.E.C.K.S. means to me. Also my comments on Facebook have gotten longer and longer and Twitter only lets you tweet so I thought I should resume blog work again, that way your wall won't be taken up with my long comments!

When I was a teenager, just saying that I think, Oh that wasn't that long ago but then I saw a picture of a person I went to college with and I thought, "WOW, she is OLD" then I realized she was 45 days YOUNGER than me! NO, I will not be telling you who I thought that about! So as a teenager I had a godly youth pastor who constantly pointed me to Christ and checked up on me and my bible reading. I really flourished under Bro. Ben Sargent. Then he left, some stupid thing about the Navy transferring him . . . and I floundered. We got a new youth pastor and looking back I realized my spirituality was based upon the expectations a man had placed on me and I had not matured in my christian life to sustain those expectations based upon what God had for me. Do I think I did wrong, no, "I spake as a child, etc." I understood as a child I followed a man God had placed in my life and when he left I didn't realize I was supposed to be following God.

So as I grew physically but not really spiritually I went from camp season to camp season and each year I would surrender YET again, my will to read the Bible every day. I went to Bible college and I read the Bible for class and went to chapel 3 times a week, to church at least another 3 times a week, and dorm devotions at least 2 times a week, read the Bible for some class or another at least once a day and my personal Bible study was NON existent! Then I got out of Bible college got married to a wonderful man and became the leader who took kids to camp. Now, the only time I read my bible on a consistent daily basis was when I went to camp with those teens. Quite frankly and to my chagrin I was "too busy" serving the Lord to spend time with Him. I don't know if ANY of my former teens from the youth groups we had a privilege of serving in know this so I'm sorry if you are reading this and just realized I'm human!

God continued to wait for me. Imagine, me with all my pride and self righteousness thinking how great I was because of what I was DOING for the Lord, and God patiently waits for me. He would lovingly bring trials into my life that made me rush back to God for a quick time of repair. I would desperately read His word trying to rely on some past passage and hoping to get new strength from stale bread and when the problem corrected itself I would go back to my old busy ways. During this time in my life God became "Mr. Fix It". I rode the spiritual river of expectations placed on me by those looking up to me and those over me but still I was not seeking God's face. I was not wanting a relationship with Him. I was worse than Martha, cumbered about with many things. To my shame my husband would get up in teen class and ask who had read their Bible every day for 7 days and not wanting to lead others astray I would sheepishly raise my hand hoping God wasn't going to strike me dead from outright lying in church!

Then God graciously did something else. He moved us from the wonderful city of Grand Rapids, MI to a little farming community in Ohio just outside of Toledo and there He placed my husband as the Pastor and I became the Pastor's Wife. Now, I was confronted with the fact that I was a leader of not just children and teens but their mothers and grandmothers. For the first time I realized I needed to be reading my Bible and I better get my head on straight and get a hold of this thing. So I prayed and asked God for help and opened my Bible the first of the year with a resolve to Do my Duty and nothing more! At this point in my life Bible reading became a chore I would check off so I would no longer be lying in church. I kept this up for about a month an a half and I was feeling pretty good with myself thinking I was accomplishing something. Sure I hadn't changed or been spoken to by God like other people say but I wondered if God even really did that! Those people were probably secretly Pentacostals!

After about a month and a half I hit Leviticus and I thought I was going to die! I missed days, I got behind, I started speed reading to catch up and with two small children the idea of doing this for the rest of my life was daunting and discouraging. Please don't hate me for being human. The thought of Isaiah looming ahead of me was enough to cause me to go to God and tell Him that if I didn't start getting something soon from His word that I was quitting and I would lie about it and not care.

I think God must have heard me because I don't deserve what He did but I went up for a baby shower for my former Pastor's Wife and the new youth pastor's wife was giving the devotion. She nervously got up there and said, I don't know much about speaking especially at these sorts of things but I'm going to tell you what I do for my personal devotions . . . And next time I'll tell you what happened. So if you've read this far hold on because from here on out it only gets better!