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One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and let’s go!

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It seems like the Lord lately has been speaking to me about my tongue. Last week I talked about word curses. I’ve been watching my speech to weed out and cut off word curses that innocently (ha!) crop up throughout the chores of my day. In the Kingdom of God, it seems like there is always something to put off or cut-off and something to put on. This is the way of the Kingdom.

By the way, our lead pastor cut off his dreadlocks last week!

And our executive pastor cut off his long hair!

As I said, always something to cut off and something to put on.

to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 4:22-24

Have you recently sensed from the Holy Spirit anything that you need to put off, cut off?

So last night, in the middle of the night, I was drowsily awake and the Holy Spirit was putting in my mind a flute technique that I used long ago called ‘double tonguing’. In my almost sleep state I was practicing ta-ka-ta-ka-ta-ka-ta-ka… over and over again. This is double tonguing for wind instruments to help with speed, efficiency and consistency in fast passages. These are to be started with ‘ta’ (tongued) not just blowing into the flute and slurring them altogether. Double Tongue. Ta with the tongue by the teeth, and Ka with the back of the tongue.

I really must declare how much gratitude I have to the Lord for letting me learn the flute in college and play it throughout these last fifty years. It has been a joy to practice and share music with others. Thank you Jesus!

However I started the flute on a bad note. 😂 I mean it was selfish. We were going to be missionaries. I was a pianist. I knew I couldn’t take a piano to Africa or a South American jungle. I loved music. So I protected myself (without asking the Lord) and decided to learn flute so I would have portable music with me.

We never did go to Africa or any southern clime, but Alaska! I always had a piano nearby. And though I played my flute throughout those twelve years of mission service, I did have a discipline from the Lord. When we returned to Washington state and a regular job and life, I had to give my flute away to a music friend as a ‘borrow’ and not play flute until they returned it. It was a cutting off of control, pride and manipulation and a putting on of humility and surrender.

This morning in devotions while praying about ‘double tongue’ and my flute, I realized that I have an intermediate level flute that I can no longer play. It has open holes. My fingers of 70+ years no longer can cover those holes for performance.

With gratefulness, I will give it up for another person to enjoy. It was for a time and place. It is something to be cut off.

My daughter’s counsel has always been to thank the Lord for these kind of items, remember the memories and then clear out the unused items.

Is there anything in your life that you sense the Lord saying that it has had its time and place and now must go?

In these kinds of words from the Lord, I’m always looking for the good and bad, the positive and negative and the cutting off and the putting on.

It is like in Revelation chapter two: Jesus says what he likes about the churches but He also says what they need to change that He does not like.

Double Tongue has a secondary meaning. It can be a colloquialism for speaking hypocrisy, deceit–for speaking one way to one person and a different way to another person. There is even a Bible verse using this term. See below!

Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain.
1 Timothy 3:8

In this verse, the only verse in the Bible where that double-tongued word is used, it means: double in speech, saying one thing with one person, another with another (with the intent to deceive).

The metaphor would be a snake, a double tongued snake. That would be words from the enemy. Words of death. Word curses. That’s what we cut off and put off!

If you are interested in a prayer of putting off (cutting off) and putting on, then click on the arrow and join me, out loud, in this prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father, I love You for sending Jesus to be my Savior and Friend. He took all my sins away and paid for them by dying on the cross. I am forgiven and loved because of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection! Thank You so much! Please forgive me for times where I have spoken one way to someone and then deceitfully, known or unknown, to another person. Forgive me for any way that I have partnered with hypocrisy and deceit. That’s not what I want to do. That’s not who I am or who I want to be. I cut that off in Jesus’ Mighty Name. Cleanse me. Help me. Purify my heart so my speech is pure, encouraging and upbuilding both to myself and to others. That’s what I want to put on! Thank You for Your correction. You said in Your Word, that those whom You love, You correct. Thank You for Your great LOVE!!! I receive it! In Jesus Name, Amen

And this is the song that came to me on that same morning as the double tongue word:

If you connect with this blog episode, and desire a freedom in the area of finances, we encourage you to go to Amazon and purchase our book with personal activations and engagements to help you heal and deal with these issues. Financial Healing: A Spiritual Journey by Richard and Jackie Nalos is available in soft cover or Kindle on Amazon.

© Jackie Nalos 2022 Jackie’s Blog. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jackie Nalos and Jackie’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

If you have an upsetting or confusing dream I’d love to partner with you to ask God for a spiritual interpretation. God gives interpretations to everyone, not only Jesus followers. Request assistance by emailing: helpwithmydreams@gmail.com.

Credit to Pixabay for blog photos.

Word Curses

This week it has come to my attention, I believe from the Holy Spirit, that I have been speaking some word curses over myself in my homemaking tasks. Maybe you have never heard of that term. We don’t really use that word in church or in sermons. Word Curses. Where did I ever get that? Well, let me explain in this post. Everything in our lives needs to align with the Word of God, The Holy Bible, and here are the verses that expose word curses.

The tongue can speak words that bring life or death. Those who love to talk must be ready to accept what it brings.
Speak without thinking, and your words can cut like a knife. Be wise, and your words can heal.
Kind words are like a life-giving tree, but lying words will crush your spirit.
When you talk, don’t say anything bad. But say the good things that people need—whatever will help them grow stronger. Then what you say will be a blessing to those who hear you.
The tongue is like a fire. It is a world of evil among the parts of our body. It spreads its evil through our whole body and starts a fire that influences all of life. It gets this fire from hell.
Proverbs 18:21; 12:18; 15:4; Ephesians 4:29; James 3:6

So I’m sure you have read those Bible verses before. We all know to be careful in our speech with others. We try. We fail. We apologize. We forgive.

But have we ever thought that we have to give the same favor, attention and care to what we speak about ourselves, either out loud or in our thought life?

These Bible admonitions apply to you and I, speaking and thinking about ourselves. For example:

I say that I am overwhelmed at the overwhelming amount of work to keep my house clean.
I think I am too tired to make this dinner today. I can’t.
I don’t have any time to do what I want to do because there’s so much work.
I’m so weak. I’m not strong.

Those are words of death!

That’s what I used to say to my children when they were teens. “Those are words of death!” However, I need to take my own advice. The list I wrote above may feel true but it is not upbuilding and encouraging for me. The Bible says to speak encouraging words. The Word says that the Holy Spirit is our Helper and He will help me. I can speak that. It is an encouraging word to myself. The Word says to call on the Name of the Lord and He hears and He will answer. I can do that with my words. It will bring Life, not crush my spirit. When my tongue speaks this kind of negative hopelessness, it becomes a curse and spreads its evil all throughout my body–of course I feel lethargic and overwhelmed.

Jesus followers are very diligent about keeping our mouths from using curse words like da-n, sh-t, f-ck, etc.

And yet so easily we use our tongue to destroy ourselves–destroy our beautiful identity that Jesus Christ has given us and that the Bible unfolds to us as children of the King of Kings.

In the deliverance ministry we are seeing the enemy’s tactics to oppress and tie up people. In the forefront are word curses. Parents have spoken horrible negativity over some children. Teachers have used words like knives on their students. Pastors have sometimes, in their earnest desire to help people, sadly have inadvertently criticized and left wounds. Youths have listened to enemy lies that are whispered to them and they think or speak suicidal thoughts. These are all word curses. We thought they were impotent. Let’s read the above Bible verses and remind ourselves that these word curses are lethal–like cutters, like crushers, like arsonists, like murderers.

Are there any word curses that others have spoken over you, that have stuck and you believed them?

Are there any word curses that you have spoken over yourself?

The good news is that this is why Jesus died, a real death, for us!

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole. Galatians 3:13

As believers in Jesus, we can break these curses off of us and then speak words of Life and encouragement instead.

So being reminded of our ministry to others, where we encourage a person to list all the word curses ever spoken over them, or that they spoke over themselves, and then we break those cruses in Jesus Name, in our ministry session–I did that for myself. I asked the Lord to show me all the word curses over my housekeeping and housecleaning that I had been saying and thinking. I took it to Jesus. I broke those all, each individually, out loud, in Jesus Name. Because Jesus died on the cross and took those curses for me. I don’t agree with those word curses–they are not my truth. I poured our my heart to my Savior, asked Him to forgive me for wrong thoughts and wrong speech, and I spoke Bible truth over myself.

And be alert! The Bible tells us to watch our words when we speak to God. Why?

In prayer, we can speak word curses over ourselves. We can inadvertently pray word curses over others as we pray for them. How awful!

Always bless. Blessings are the best kind of prayers. Blessing is the opposite of cursing. You can’t go wrong when you bless in prayer.

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Numbers 2:26,27

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. 2 Corinthians 13:14

Credit to Pixabay for blog photos.

Grateful Repentance

I began my life as a Canadian. Our special day was July 1st, Dominion Day, Canada Day. After 23 years of living in Canada and 23 years of living in the United States, I became a U.S. citizen. However as I understand it, I do not lose my Canadian citizenship in the eyes of my home country. Speaking of home country, this is what the word of God says:

But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior.
Philippians 3:20

So our true citizenship is in heaven with Jesus.

This is where our heart is to be.

If my heart is for my heavenly citizenship, I have eyes to see how different my earthly country is from my heavenly citizenship.

This difference forces me to repentance before God in prayer. In prayer I cry, “Have mercy, O God, for we, in this earthly country, have sinned greatly against You.”

I hear of violence.

I hear of hatred for Jewish people.

I read of death and destructions.

As a citizen of Heaven I say, “Jesus, when you come and rule on this earth, this (suicide, murder, violence, hatred, betrayal) won’t happen. You will rule with a rod and righteousness will reign.”

Or I pray, “Heavenly Father, this evil thing (uprising, cursing, abortion, war, cancer) is not something that will be in Heaven. In my Heavenly Home, there will be none of this.”

and He (Jesus) will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father.

Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Revelation 2:27; 2 peter 3:13

And yet I am free to travel on good roads and see beautiful sights in the United States.

I am free to worship in my church or out in the open.

I have police protection as a citizen of U.S. And the Bible says:

All of you must obey the government rulers. Everyone who rules was given the power to rule by God. And all those who rule now were given that power by God. So anyone who is against the government is really against something God has commanded. Those who are against the government bring punishment on themselves. People who do right don’t have to fear the rulers. But those who do wrong must fear them. Do you want to be free from fearing them? Then do only what is right, and they will praise you.
Rulers are God’s servants to help you. But if you do wrong, you have reason to be afraid. They have the power to punish, and they will use it. They are God’s servants to punish those who do wrong. So you must obey the government, not just because you might be punished, but because you know it is the right thing to do.
And this is why you pay taxes too. Those rulers are working for God, and they give all their time to the work of ruling. Give everyone what you owe them. If you owe them any kind of tax, then pay it. Show respect to those you should respect. And show honor to those you should honor.
Romans 13:1-7

So I pray, “Heavenly Father, thank You for the freedoms that I have in this earthly country. This is from You and I am grateful to You for all.”

And I pray as I pass the summer road construction, “God bless those workers and give them a good day. I am traveling on better roads because of their hard work.”

And I pray when we have a detour due to new water lines coming in, “God bless those workers and thank You for them. Our infrastructure is improving because of their diligence. Bless the county planners who decided what to do when.”

And when the garbage and recycle trucks create a long line of cars behind them, I say, “Thank You Lord for garbage trucks to take away my trash. Bless their hard work and give them joy in their work, knowing they are helping all of us.”

The word that comes to me about my earthly country U.S.A. is, Grateful Repentance.

Thank You Heavenly Father for 250 Years of freedom for the United States of America. We don’t deserve it. Thank You for Your Mercy on this country. We are grateful.

And a big Happy Birthday to my husband, Richard who turns 76 today!

Credit to Pixabay for blog photos.

Anniversary

This week was our anniversary week. We have been married 55 years on Friday June 26,2026.

I want to give a big shout-out to my wonderful husband of 55 years!

Someone asked him, after hearing of his anniversary, “What’s your secret?” He replied, “Jesus!”

I agree! It is only the grace of God through Jesus Christ that has given us the gift of these many years together. Also the prayers of our parents.

He is the husband of my youth! I was 19 and he was 20 when we married.

“Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth.”
Proverbs 5:18

Here are just a few of the kindnesses my husband shows me on a daily and weekly basis:

He always puts the toilet lid down. 🤣
He makes the bed in the morning, sometimes he even puts the foo-foo bedspread and comforter on–the ones he hates!
For years he brought me my coffee in the morning, until I told him to just sleep in.
He always comes and sees me off when I am going places in the car.
He holds my hand while we watch K-dramas and comedy romances on Netflix.
He makes sure that I have some cash in my wallet and updates the credit cards when needed.
He helps wash the dishes and clean up the sink dishes, even when I’m not there.
He makes his own breakfast and sometimes lunch too, so I don’t have to cook so much.
He eats anything I make and doesn’t complain about the unusually healthy concoctions I create.
He keep our yard and grass tidy by mowing, weed wacking and weeding without ever being asked to.
He hugs and kisses me every day without fail and first thing in the morning! ❤️ 🔥
He takes care of the finances with integrity and yet discusses with me any decisions concerning them.
He fixes everything that is broken right away, in fact I dare not tell him something is broken before dinner or we won’t eat till it is fixed! 😂
He takes me on all sorts of vacations and checks in with me about places I would like to go.
He likes me and wants to spend time with me! ❤️ He doesn’t mind doing the things I like to do because he likes to be with me.
He’s very strong and he will lift things I can’t lift, open things I find stuck, solve practical confusions I have on how things work, and even do the job if it is overwhelming me too much.
He always remembers my birthday and our anniversary and makes sure that something good happens on those days and weeks.
He prays with me every night before bed and is always willing to “stop, drop and pray” for me or others. He will discuss theological principles with me and Bible passages. ✝︎ 🕊
And there are so many more wonderful things that my husband is and does! I could go on and on! Thank You Heavenly Father for giving me this man and the grace for us to still be married!

Thank you Richard for being such a wonderful husband and friend to me all these years! I love and appreciate you so much!

Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

Richard, God has given you the grace to “be” and “do” this Bible verse!! And I am the one who has been blessed!

Extra Tough Things

I needed some new rubber boots. You see, I do a lot of gardening. I walk through out winter creek. There are puddles everywhere and tall wet grass. I need boots that don’t leak and boots that are tall. My husband got some new boots and every time we went outside he would say, “I love my new boots! Jackie, you have to get some new boots!”

So after a lot of looking and deliberating I got these boots online!!

Do you like my new boots?

They are called, Xtratuf. Translation: Extra tough!

Well after they arrived, and I had pranced around the field with them on, I got to thinking about the brand name. “Xtratuf”. I wondered if it had anything to do with the ministry session that was on the schedule the next day. Would it be an ‘extra tough’ session? Did it need more prayer from me? Had we all prayed enough for this person? With thoughts and feelings like this, I knew I needed to go to the Lord and talk to Him about it. This is what I sensed the Lord saying:

Yes, it is Xtratuf. But you don’t understand how Tuff I AM, the Power and Might and The Throne I sit upon. This is the Power your prayer should be declarations of. My Power and My Ability to deliver. This is the way to handle “Xtratuf”. Even the words of knowledge are not the power–though they are from the Spirit of God. The Power is ME–my death and resurrection. I AM the One–The Deliverer! I have the POWER! Seek ME, JESUS! Declare ME, JESUS!

Do we have a confusion in our life that seems unsolvable?

JESUS is Xtratuf! He has all the POWER and KNOWLEDGE!

Do we have a trial that is plaguing our hearts? Taking us down?

JESUS is Xtratuf! He has all the COMFORT and STRENGTH!

Do we have relationship conflicts that are making our life unsettled and disturbed?

JESUS is Xtratuf! He has all the PATIENCE and PEACE!

We just don’t really realize what the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ of Nazareth did for us when we really believe Him and declare His Power. Here’s a sample prayer for your Xtratuf situation and for mine.

Dear Jesus, Thank You so much for dying on the cross for my sins. Thank You for rising from the dead for my life. Thank You for Your Great Power! I seek YOU! You have all the love, all the solutions and all the power that I need. I want YOU. YOU, Jesus, are my Number One! You sit on the Throne at the Right Hand of the Father in Heaven. You have been given all authority and power. Your Name is the Name that is above every name both on earth and in heaven. I declare Your Power and Your Might over my situation right now. You know all about it. You know how it is distressing me. You know my feelings and my thoughts and my prayers. I give it all to YOU! I trust You! I trust Your power to deliver me from this Xtratuf problem situation. I declare that You alone are tougher and mightier than this. I declare and trust that Your will be done. I am beyond grateful for Your kindness and care for me.
I love you!
In Jesus Name, Amen

Here is some comfort music for our souls. I’m not sure why ‘blues’ does that for me with scripture. Maybe it reminds me of my youngest son who used to play blues on the guitar and it always got me a’toe-tappin’ and a’dancin’ ! 😃

Credit to Pixabay for blog photos.

Saucey!

What is that? What is saucey? I know what sassy is but what is saucey? Is it extra cheese sauce on your Mac and Cheese? I needed to know because I woke up from a dream where I met “Saucey”! It was a person in my dream!

So I did what a lot of us do these days, I asked AI to give me some information on the word ‘saucey’ and its meaning in local speech.

To my surprise, we do use it as a term now. It means being cheeky, impertinent, disrespectful, provocative, insolent, brash. Oops! That’s not what I want to be. The Lord had my ear!

So that morning in my devotions, I renounced out loud all those things. I asked the Holy Spirit to produce respectful, humble, submissive, courteous, modest, and polite talk in my mouth and my actions. I flipped the dream person and asked the Lord to help me be a person who adds flavor, salt, moisture to the world and culture–to be like a flavorful sauce.

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. Matthew 5:13

So that morning I was careful with my words. My husband and I were off to an event and lunch with friends. I remember the Holy Spirit helping stop some cheeky words from coming out of my mouth as we travelled there. However after the event, getting ready to drive to lunch, I had completely forgotten and disregarded anything to do with the Lord’s warning. I felt we needed to “get going”. And to hurry my husband and friend up I did an impertinent, provocative, insolent, brash and disrespectful thing. What do you think it was?

Yes! I blasted on my car horn many times!

Oblivious, I enjoyed lunch and visiting. However as we were walking out of the restaurant, my friend gently queried me about my actions with the horn. It didn’t seem polite to my husband or her. And that woke me up! “Oh, you are right. I should never have done that”, I said. “And the Lord even warned me about it in my devotions this morning.”

So right away when I saw my husband, I apologized even in front of my friend. I said, “Will you forgive me for honking the horn at you. That was rude.” And he responded yes.

The next time I got alone with the Lord, I sincerely repented for being “saucey”. I told Him, “You even warned me. That was so kind of You and I just didn’t get it.” I continued being ‘down’ on myself before the Lord because I saw that even the day before, in devotions, He had talked to me about being patient and having patience and waiting on Him, patiently waiting. I had obeyed neither days warnings. I was remorseful, melancholy and sad. And here’s what I wrote in my journal that I heard He said:

Jackie, you are talking about honking a horn a few times. Two friends heard you apologize to your husband and this, is discipleship, continuing on in your older age. It is from Me. Your friends heard that i had already told you not to do this. Rejoice! Rejoice at My Work. My wonderful work to the children of men. You are My child and I displayed “My Work”. What better thing than this–it is better than being ‘very good’. Also, one friend saw how to ‘correct a loved one on something.” This is ‘your heart’ I know. Rejoice! All that you are sad about is nothing to be sad about. Rejoice! A friend who can correct you is a deep relationship.

So isn’t it crazy how easily we, as christians, forget how powerful and wonderful the blood of Jesus is! We forget how it cleanses us thoroughly from our sin. We forget that it is not about our ‘good’ behavior but about Jesus’ sacrifice that produced ‘justification’ for us. It means ‘just as if I have never sinned.’

What a price Jesus paid for us. What love! What amazing love Jesus showed for each one of us individually.

May we never forget to live in His Love!

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
John 15:9

And let us all remember: “A Friend Who can correct you is a deep relationship!”

Jesus is our very Best Friend!

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
John 15:15

Credit to Pixabay for blog photos.

God Cares…

When did this unusual prompt from the Lord start? Well, it was from my sermon notes. I take sermon notes and pray for our congregation at 7am each morning that I can. I trust that the preaching pastor has already prayed, “Lord, what do you want to speak and say to this congregation?” So I pray what the pastor preaches. This particular morning I noticed in my notes that we all were requested to ask the Lord three questions:

Lord, would You unpack my priorities to me?

2. Lord would You show me the priorities that drive my decisions?

3. Lord would You help me to prioritize my life to Your perfect plans? And tell me what this looks like in real time actions and motivations.

So after my prayer time I opened my journal and asked the Lord the first two of the three great questions that you see above. I quieted my heart and listened to hear what the Holy Spirit would say, or show me.

Ow!! It wasn’t the easiest of things to hear! My priorities, I sensed the Spirit revealing, were food and people pleasing. Ouch!

So after my confessions I bravely asked the third great question. And I was quite shocked at the answer I heard!

So, if you could imagine what God would want for your priorities, what do you think it would be?

My prayer was, “Lord, this is a Blind Spot to me. Open my eyes, please. Lord would You please HELP ME! to prioritize my life to Your Plans.”

Here’s the surprising ‘blind spot’ that the Lord revealed to me. I sensed Him saying, “Clean and organize your home. If you have two of something, give it away. This big home is My Gift to you. But you have not kept it well or prioritized my gift. If you cannot care for physical gifts, how can you steward spiritual gifts? You disdain cleaning but it will give you strong arms. Yes, yes, yes, immerse yourself in My cleaning priority. Not hired out–you. Are you listening? I will help you.”

What would you do if you received a message like that?

Three interesting things happened after I got that message.

I began Spring Cleaning and organizing. We noticed the front loader washing machine needed attention. We found a little door at the bottom that we hadn’t seen before. We opened it and out poured the most stinky, vile, water and lint. Fifteen years of bile pouring out of my washing machine!! And I had been clueless about it!

Please give me grace not judgment? Have mercy on me? Has it ever happened to you?

The next amazing thing that randomly occurred was a YouTube cleaning guy showed up–Brandon from “CleanThatUp”. This young man is inspiring! With his smiley face, cheerful and passionate attitude about cleaning, his tools, his clear instruction–hey, anyone wants to just get to cleaning! That was ‘help’ from the Lord! I put one of his videos to watch at the end of this blog for your interest.

The third was a sermon. (Sorry, pastor, I couldn’t find anyone in a t-shirt and jeans with dreads for the photo! ) 😂

The sermon last Sunday affirmed everything that the Lord had said to me, and that I had been doing. 1) Have open ears for conviction and correction. 2) Respect that God owns us and our possessions. He gives us what we have and we are to steward all our stuff well. 3) Choose obedience and ask God to change our hearts. (All this from Exodus 20:15 Do not steal.)

What do you learn as you read all this that transpired with me?

Here’s what I learn:

Being at church ministered to my life. The pastor’s sermons were helpful when I applied them. God cares and gives me grace to attend church and appreciate it.
I didn’t really know what priorities God had for me in this season. I didn’t know because I didn’t ask Him. He cared enough to give me grace to ask.
God cares for the details of my life including my daily life.
God cares enough to help me with what He wants me to do.
God cares enough to affirm me in His plan for my daily life. He let me know I heard Him correctly.
There’s a hidden metaphor here: If God desires my home to be so clean, how much more does He want my heart, my thoughts, my body and my inner secret life to be clean and pure.

God will give you grace and courage to ask those three questions from the sermon! There won’t be the same answers as mine. What do You think He will say? Aren’t you curious?

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not much more valuable than they? Matthew 6:26

God Cares for you and me!

And here’s Brandon, from Clean That Up, the third generation janitor and proud of it!

Credit to Pixabay for blog photos.

Speaking and Listening

A small town in Alaska is a different type of culture than the rural area surrounding a city where I live. I have come up here almost every year for over ten years. I stay for a week, sometimes ten days. It is wonderful to be a part of our son’s family for a short time.

One of the things I love is family birthday celebrations with the greater family in the area. We have a cookout with fire grilled hamburgers. Children by the dozens are biking all around, playing ball, laughing, yelling, fighting, falling, and it all is so healthy and family oriented. In the distance are glorious mountains partly hidden by the clouds. The view across the inlet never gets old.

The conversation between everyone is continuous. Is that a huge rock I see out there? Or is it a whale? A boat? How many agates did you find on your beach walk? We share updates on the long winter. Town news is given and everyone knows the people by name.

I am listening to all this banter and I am a part of it as a member of the family and yet not a part because I am not a local. So, I do a lot of listening.

Speaking to everyone is a little tricky in this situation. I start to tell the stories of our biking with electric bikes, the family mountain biking on trails, or stories about our church of 6,000 people. Blank stares, confused looks and no personal connection happens with these kind of tales. Oops! That’s a different culture. Those stories push dear ones away rather than draw them near.

The Lord has spoken to me often about how I use my tongue. One of His corrections has to do with never saying demeaning things about people, even in a joking manner.

This is so hard for me. I fail so often. I apologize to the Lord. I ask Him to help me again. I thank Him for forgiveness because of Jesus’ blood shed on the cross and Jesus’ resurrection.

This is what our walk with God is like. We fail. He still loves. We try again. He forgives again when we falter. Our Heavenly Father is so loving.

Oh give thanks to the Lord for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. Psalm 107:1

The best path of all is the listening path. Here’s what the Lord says about it:

James 1:19: “Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters! Let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.”

Proverbs 17:28: “Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.”

Proverbs 10:19: “In the multitude of words sin is not lacking, but he who restrains his lips is wise.”

Credit to Pixabay for blog tongue photo.

Breakup

Here I am, sitting on the couch, in a cottage in Alaska. An eagle 🦅 just flew overhead as I write. A stream meanders along, bubbling through our wooded backyard and the lake is our view out the side window. It has been a cold, late Spring here. Even so, the sun was up and shining at 10pm last night. My son said the lakes were frozen last week. This week the ice gradually melted. We call it “breakup”.

However as we came to Alaska to visit we heard about a different kind of breakup. It was in the little local church we usually attend. A church split. 😢

Have you ever been through a painful church split?

When the ice in the lakes and streams breakup and the water flows—that’s a good thing. The salmon can eventually swim up this stream that’s in the above picture, later in the season, because of the flowing water.

What’s the metaphor for the little church? God so often uses His Creation to give us pictures of His wisdom.

The ice is coldness of hearts. Break up the ice cold hearted bitterness and offense. Talk to Jesus about it. Let the Holy Spirit heal our hearts. Let the Living Water flow and cleanse us. Relational restoration. Not necessarily back to the same church? But they will know we are Christians by our love, even when we are in different buildings.

Wounded and bandaged hearts can still love because there is enough of God’s grace to go around for everyone.

God always can do good things with the messes we make. He makes our messes into messages.

The best example is Jesus. Even though He died on the cross for our sins, God raised Him from the dead. God made tragedy into our blessings of mercy and grace. We always remember this—it is our Hope in every mess we make in life. It is our Hope for church breakup and every other kind of split. God will make it into something good for His Name sake and for the Kingdom of God. That’s what He does!

All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

Yes, and I remember when God did that for me. We were part of a little church and because of issues we felt we needed to leave. Our hearts were icy, cold and offended. We went back to a previous church and attended there. (We didn’t know at the time that this actually was God‘s best plan for us.) We were hurting and struggling to forgive. Finally, in a worship service, the Lord spoke and said to go back, forgive, and apologize, and make it right. So my husband, on behalf of our family, did the hard work and met with the pastor and elder and apologized. He offered: “If you would like us to come back, we will return. We want things to be right between us.” The men responded, “We want things to be right between us too, but you do not need to return. Just stay where you are.” And that’s how it ended that year. Fast-forward about two years from then—we randomly met the pastor in a little café. We were surprised, but we invited him to eat with us. As we ate lunch together, the pastor humbly gave a full apology to us for what had happened. He said it had not been right. We were amazed and praised the Lord and learned this truth of “breakup”.

What do you think would have happened if we hadn’t broken up our ice-hearts by God’s grace?

Let the Living Water flow!

By God’s grace!

She’s so mad at me!

Have you ever had someone really mad at you? Angry enough to avoid you? Annoyed, displeased and irritated enough to completely ignore you as they pass by you–even though that person has been a pretty close friend or relative. If we live long on this earth, I believe it will happen to each one of us.

I’m remembering a situation where a wise, older, godly, well known ministry person was so frustrated with me that she wouldn’t talk to me or even acknowledge me when she passed by me. And we lived in the same small town, and went to the same little church!

I was not wise, rather I was young. I had little experience in ministry. I was a mommy of little ones. I absolutely did not know what to do in this experience.

But God had mercy on me and by His grace He gave me a strategy that I’ve kept all my lifelong.

I sensed the Lord saying to “keep a bridge open to her.” So I did. I created the bridge of always saying “hello” so it would never be unusual for a greeting to pass between us. I made a bridge of a smile and as much eye contact as possible, in order that someday face to face would feel normal. The bridge included going toward this lady, not away from her to avoid her. My hope was that in the future all would be settled and well between us.

Well, I did what the Holy Spirit said to do in that complicated relationship and eventually, little by little, all went back to normal. We never sat down and discussed the two sides of the disagreement that caused her anger.

But eerily we eventually were closer to each other than we were before the relationship break.

God is so smart, wise, knowledgeable and understanding. He just knows what to do in each difficult relationship situation. I am so glad I listened to Him and obeyed–at least for that one.

Do you have a break in a relationship? Is someone very angry with you?

What is the Holy Spirit telling you to do about it?

If you need help, here are some Bible passages: Click on the arrow.

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Romans 12:18

If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector. Matthew 18:15-17

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15:1

Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 1Peter 3:9

Question for thought: What is the role of forgiveness in this situation?

Credit to Pixabay for blog photos.