Weekends are for doors

May your weekend be one of opening new doors..................open the word of the Lord where-ever your hand can reach!

Let Jesus be your all in all...................and let grace be the one breath you savor while on your knees.


all of grace,
Robbie

Rest in him

John 15:4

Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself, it must remain in the vine. Neither can  you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

Abide in Jesus- Rest in Him

So many times- I cry out to the Lord, " I'm done" or " I'm tired"........ I hear silence- I feel silence.......

Then a calm answer from the Lord- I feel-  then rest- then rest.

And so I close my eyes for a second and rest- then the adrenaline from the world shoots into me AGAIN and I rest no more.

I was in a rush this morning- as usual- Once at home- I cleaned a very quick clean.... Lit candles..... Sat to blog a message from my heart, and then I glance out of the corner of my eye and saw one of my candles- on fire- burning the whole candle inside and out- there was paper wrapped around the candle and it had caught fire. So, of course I jump up and put out the small fire in my kitchen- as I act like a firefighter- I pray, Father How or when will I ever be able to rest.

Rest in him....... That is more work than you think.

Every day we should come to him humbly and straightforwardly and say, " Lord, is there anything in me that is not according to your will, that has not been ordered by you."

Wait patiently- a relationship between you and Christ will spring up. He will give, and wants to give us unbroken fellowship ALL day long.

Spending time with the Lord takes work- takes time- takes an effort. Are we willing to take that extra time for the Lord?

Do we let the busy- the fast- the world keep us- just close enough- but too far- from our Lord. It is hard to rest when you are running.

If we stop long enough- we will hear him- we will feel him-

Father- slow me down so that I can rest in you. Sit with you. My spirit longs for you, Lord. For more of you.

Amy

Temporal vs. Eternal

     Do you ever wonder what God's dream is for you? Are you ever afraid that you are going to miss it? Maybe it is just me because I no longer question my salvation, my fear is that I am going to miss it. Miss God's path for me. And it will be my fault.
     I am afraid that I am going to spend my life on what is comfortable, easy, safe. I want to learn to abandon my life to a Greater Power and a Greater Purpose. I don't want to choose my own course. There are so many blessings if we allow God total control over our lives. God is showing me lately that I only give him part of me as a sacrifice.
Look at Romans 12:1, Therefore I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God- this is your spiritual act of worship..
When we ask God what do you want? And he says, "I want your body." You see when he gets the body, he gets the contents. Paul gives us so much direction how to give it to him. "Present your body to him as a living sacrifice." 
 Why a living sacrifice? Paul was basically contrasting it with the old Testament sacrifices, which animals were first killed, cut into pieces and placed on the altar. Paul was saying, "Don't kill your body and place it on the altar. Place a living body on the altar."
When a sacrifice was placed on the altar it no longer belonged to the person who offered it, it belonged to God. God is saying, "Place your body on My altar as a living sacrifice. From now on you don't own it. I own it. You don't make decisions as to what will happen to your body- I make them. I take full responsibility for it. I decide what you will eat, wear, and where you go. 
 There are major benefits to this kind of commitment. God has a different attitude toward the property that is merely leased to Him as opposed to the property that is His. He accepts full responsibility for what he owns.
     God has made it clear that offering our bodies as living sacrifices is OBEDIENCE that comes from our heart.  Daily laying aside our own desires to follow him. Putting all our energy, resources at His disposal and TRUSTING him.
Surrendering your life to God is the most wonderful and hardest thing you will ever have to do.

To cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give it up for me, you will find it. (Matthew 10:39).

Looking at the world through a TEMPORAL value system will cause us to pursue happiness through:  earthly treasures: money, power, popularity.
Driven only to accomplish to impress!

Prosperity knits a man to the World. He feels that is “finding his place in it,” while really it is finding its place in him.
C.S. Lewis

The eternal valve system is going to require FAITH......it will also require us to guard our hearts and our minds.
What we love is what we will give our hearts too...........and what we give our hearts to is what we pass down to our children.

"Our priorities will shape our practices!"

What have our desires made us?
AW Tozer

At the end of my life when I stand at the throne of God, I long to hear those powerful words "Well Done My Good and Faithful Servant."

all of grace,
Robbie

My Journey

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

What a precious promise! What does that promise mean? Why do we complicate the simple? God says, in this verse, that he WILL correct our path and set a new and better course for our lives- if we.....Trust in the Lord with ALL of our heart!

God designed us, his creation, to have complete dependency upon him. Even in the everyday, ordinary decisions of a day- he wants us to seek him for counsel. When we come to him- he promises to communicate with us.

We must be faithful- to read God's word, study it, meditate on it, and obey it. God will guide us when we have decisions to make. The Holy Spirit teaches us and directs us when we pray and seek God's will for our lives. We walk by faith, not by sight.

It is our responsibility to place ourselves in the Lord's hands, through surrender, through study of his word, through fellowship with him in prayer, through uniting ourselves with others who believe.

Earnestly pray for his direction- look for his support-Trust God.

This past weekend at the "The Cove" in Asheville, NC.- I was able to spend quality time with my Lord. I am ashamed to say that, because it doesn't take- Going anywhere- to feel God. But I did feel him this weekend. I felt the warmth of the sun - shining through the trees, I felt the wind blow through my body- as if the Holy Spirit was filling my lungs with Holy Air.... I heard the trees sing praises to our Father. I saw rocks everywhere- we were on a mountain- which made me think- if I don't praise him, the rocks will.

Why do I struggle on this journey? It is plain... It is clear..... He said to me over and over... all down the mountain.....I made sure Robbie remembered it, cause I didn't have a pen handy as I rolled my pumpkin like self down the mountain. We nicknamed ourselves the pumpkin and the pear- cause it wasn't pretty seeing us, or even hearing us gasp for breath as we climbed this mountain. But what I heard so clearly, so plain.

"In all things, In all ways- acknowledge me"!!!

In the good times- In the bad times- In all times- In all ways

I have trouble with the letting go

Walk in the spirit, not the flesh

But how?

Mediate and Pray

Trust and believe

Mercy and Grace

 I remember, on the mountain, during my alone time with our Father- thinking loudly...... " What do you want from me?"...... What?

As the wind started to blow- I opened my mouth and inhaled the sweet air. I felt the Holy Spirit run through me!

All I want from you is for you to Acknowledge me.... Trust me......... Spend time with me.

Father help me hear what you are saying to me. Help me to be obedient.

Amy

Resurrection

Amy and I had front row seats in the middle of a forest............we wait in silence! We hear streams bubbling as water flows down the mountain.

In my silence I ask myself do I really want to die? Die to self..........and be resurrected with the king?

Maybe I don't really BELIEVE in the resurrection of Christ?

Romans 6:4;

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

We watch the sun flicker through the trees like glittering gold. We wait before streams in a desert.

There is a wood-pecker up above, and an owl hooting to another. And I wonder is it normal to think about life's pain as if it is the end to all things?

It's me who denies the resurrection when I look at death as the final!

Generations come and generations go..............but what  is it that I am seeking in the now?

Is it the temporary valve system?

or

The Eternal?

Feeling small in this spinning, falling world........meditating on John 15 has split me wide open!

Sitting beneath the trees my body quakes...........something inside of me yearns for more in this life. I tell Amy I don't know why the sunlight makes me start to cry. Is it my guilt ridden sin?  Maybe it's my selfishness, in my me-ism little world.

Maybe I weep because for so long I lived by the temporal valve system. Even enjoying it! And wanting more of it.

Aren't the deniers of the resurrection of Christ the ones who don't see His grace that is everywhere?

 His grace and mercy rein even in the darkness!

Isn't freedom found in Christ?

I open my hands and reach them up to the sky....................and quietly mumble......."I surrender all."

The sun warms my face.........and I ask myself, "what if I lived my life like the tomb was empty?"

The same power that raised Christ from the dead is LIVING in you and me............it is time to start living like it!

all of grace,

Robbie

gratitude that keeps on coming:

-having homemade turkey and dressing in the mountains

solitude with God

coming home to my bed

clean sheets

husband who missed me

learning to wait on God

long walks

a pastor who drove the long to give us Communion in the mountains

prayer

life changes

testimonies

fellowship

fresh air to breath

coolness of fall

leaves turning and falling

candles flickering into the night

A God who is unchanging peace and rest

renouncing self

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Weekends are made for kneeling at prayer altars

ISAIAH 56:7 (NIV)
⁷ these I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations.”

PSALM 43:4-5
⁴ Then I will go to the altar of God,
To God ^[c]my exceeding joy;
And upon the lyre I shall praise You, O God, my God.
 O send out Your light and Your truth, let them lead me;
Let them bring me to Your holy hill
And to Your dwelling places.



      Amy and I are at Cove in Asheville NC. We are on a prayer retreat! For the last month we have been meditating on John 15.  During our free time today we hiked down to the prayer altar in the woods.....the light was just beginning to lower itself through the tallest trees I have ever seen.
We bend...........and open ourselves up to the king...............we laugh and we cry......praying to be the broken.
And in the warming sunlight flowing down into the trees we find passage..................and our hearts yearn for more of him.
We hang on to the words that cry out WORTHY is the Lord..................we soak in verses from Isaiah..........and Psalms as the light flickers through the trees.
We stay bowed as the earth moves in it's own "spiritual rhythm." The trees seem to dance in the sunlight as if they were praising the King themselves.
We stand at the veil where it is torn............WAITING on our Lord.

Screaming............"My house will be a house of prayer."
We are to pray EVERYWHERE without ceasing................May your weekend be one of finding your prayer altar.......bringing thanksgiving in everything you do.

all of grace,
Robbie

New Day

 He lives at our house.....not sure why?  He has been here for a while....the kids and I love to come home and see our green little friend greet us at the back door.

The days fly by again this week...........I inhale trying so hard to breath in his grace. I exhale slowly wanting so badly for time to stand still. So much to do not knowing which way to go first.....it is then that I decide to praise the most high!
I ask myself daily what would it be like to be a companion of Jesus today?
But it's me that continues to seek his hands instead of his face......am I simply blinded? By my own flesh.................not able to see his grace that is right in front of me. Maybe I am simply CHOOSING not to see!  Especially when there is people hurting it is me that questions the most High God........instead of  kneeling on my knees to praise the King.
   
     I so long to love him in a NEW way that pleases him! Learning that up is really down and down is really up when your seeking the most high?  Isn't the point to DIE the flesh DAILY? 
I walk weekly through the hospital seeing the pain and sometimes death of others. It is then that I question Him who died for us......the one who was fully human and fully God at the same time.......He who sweated BLOOD at the thought of what was ahead! I think about my wavering faith being tossed around in the sea. How unfaithful I have been.
     Sometimes I want to scream.........how do I turn it all around? And it is then that I wonder, "who am I to question the King?"
     Sometimes the nightmares haunt me of the new widow who had to say good-bye to her husband of 63 years.......the mom who loses her teen that was driving while intoxicated. The son who watched his 77 year old father fall from a 12 story roof......The young mama who is newly diagnosed with stage four cancer and the doctors tell her there is nothing else they can do for her............. the HIV patient who had a stroke and all family and friends have disappeared since the end is near.  And I wonder where is God?................... as I run as fast as I can to my car and speed home to take a shower and try SO hard to wash the pain and the smell from my body, mind and soul. Does He see?
     It is the me who has cried out in despair I don't want to do this anymore.........but I have been called to be the humble servant to the sick and the hurting.  But some days the hurt and pain of others is what  blurrs my vision. It is then that I forget...........that I could live every moment as HOLY. Maybe ripping my clothes and putting on sack-cloth would help me to see.

    It may be next week or even tomorrow I will forget again........because someone will come through that hospital that rips a hole right through my heart...........it is then I will revert back to choosing to see through the eyes of reason instead of seeing every moment as HOLY.
     But for now I am begging please...........more of your grace. And I will say it to you and to me...........God is a good God.....His ways are not our ways...........His thoughts are not our thoughts and for now I will bend the knees and praise the most high King!


all of grace,
Robbie

 Tomorrow Amy and I traveling to Asheville, NC for a prayer retreat.........we have made a commitment to seek......seek.....seek. Daily I have spent time praying for over 300 names of beautiful women who will be there seeking the face of God! Praying hard for us as a group to have our hearts peeled back so far that we are exposed.............the kind where the flesh shows...........wanting more of him in a way I have never known. Asking kindly for your prayers too.

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