My husband and I had been married six years, were in our late twenties, and desperately wanted children. Nothing happened. Month after month we were disappointed when I didn't become pregnant. I began to accept that the ugly label -- infertile -- applied to me.
Oh, how I remember the comments. People who innocently ask why you don't have any children yet. The ones who tell you to just relax. Others who tell you how they never had that problem. It seemed like people always had something to say. Then there were the women who didn't want children who were having them. It all seemed so unfair!!
Finally, we went to the closest infertility specialist we could find. Her office was a little over two hours away. When we went in, she sat down to talk with us before she examined me. Her first question blew me away.
"What can I do for you?", she asked. HELLO?! This was a reproductive endocrinologist, an infertility specialist! What does she think I am here for? After looking at her, completely surprised by her question, I responded. "You can help us have a baby. Help us find out why we haven't been able to so far."
When she asked what I needed from her, I knew exactly what I wanted. My heart's desire was to have a child. I had been thinking about nothing else and had made the appointment weeks ahead of time, believing that she could help us.
2 Chronicles 1:7 - 10 records that God asked Solomon a similar question: God appeared to Solomon and said to him, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” Solomon answered God, “You have shown great kindness to David my father and have made me king in his place. Now, Lord God, let your promise to my father David be confirmed, for you have made me king over a people who are as numerous as the dust of the earth. Give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may lead this people.... Solomon was bold when he responded to God. He made a big request, and because Solomon's desire honored God, he was given all he asked and more.
God is still asking, "What do you want me to give to you?" Psalm 37:4 says Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. In Mark 11:24 Jesus said, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. " In John 16:24 Jesus said "Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full."
Are you still seeking God for your heart's desires? Are you still asking for Him to deliver on the promises He made long ago? Are you boldly asking for Him to give you those things that you desire to return to Him to honor him?
While cautioning us about our motives, James states in chapter 4 verse 2: You do not have, because you do not ask God.
What do you want from God? Do you want more of Him? Ask Him. Do you want to have opportunities to be used by Him? Ask Him. Do you want Him to shake your life, your family, your church, with His presence and His power? Ask Him.
Our answer to the infertility specialist's question led to her intervention in our situation. I had hoped she could help. Several months later I became pregnant with our first son. What if I had not told her what I wanted? To think, I could have missed out on the joy of my child!
When God asks the question,"What do you want me to give to you?", He has unlimited resources and total power to give us what we desire. What are you missing out on because you haven't answered His question?
Monday, May 14, 2012
Monday, May 7, 2012
Money from Jesus
I remember when our oldest son, Drew, graduated from the nursery to the two-year-old Sunday School class. No more toddling around with the babies, crying and grabbing cookies from the other kids. Now it was time to move to a room with a table, where he would sit in a chair, sing songs, listen to a lesson and color. He was finally learning about God, Jesus, the Bible! I could hardly wait to pick him up and see what he thought of his new class.
As I had hoped, he had fun. He was in a familiar place with familiar people, so the transition was easy. I asked him about his "story" and he seemed to be excited. Sunday School was going to be a good experience. As he jabbered about it (after all, he was two), he showed me something that he had gotten that morning: a quarter! Confused, I asked him to explain where the quarter came from. "Money from Jesus", he explained. Money from Jesus? He went on to tell me about the basket they passed around that had money in it. "Money from Jesus!"
I was mortified! It had never dawned on me when I was telling him about his new class that they would be passing an offering basket. My sweet, innocent two-year-old had thought the basket was for him to take money from it! When he went back the next week, he had the quarter he had taken, plus his own "money FOR Jesus"!
Unfortunately, my then two-year-old's misunderstanding becomes the mind frame of many Christians. Many of us continue to live year after year looking for what God can give to us, rather than what we can give to God. We, too, fail to understand that Christianity isn't about what God can do for us, it is about what He has called us to do for Him.
What delight there is in giving to God, to giving ourselves to Him! To fully realize the joy that overflows when we are seeking what we can do for Him, rather than focusing on what He can do for us! The psalmist said: Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4).
What are you seeking? Could you really be satisfied with anything less than the outpouring of the blessing and favor that comes from seeking HIM? As Matthew 6:31-33 says in The Message Bible: What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
As I had hoped, he had fun. He was in a familiar place with familiar people, so the transition was easy. I asked him about his "story" and he seemed to be excited. Sunday School was going to be a good experience. As he jabbered about it (after all, he was two), he showed me something that he had gotten that morning: a quarter! Confused, I asked him to explain where the quarter came from. "Money from Jesus", he explained. Money from Jesus? He went on to tell me about the basket they passed around that had money in it. "Money from Jesus!"
I was mortified! It had never dawned on me when I was telling him about his new class that they would be passing an offering basket. My sweet, innocent two-year-old had thought the basket was for him to take money from it! When he went back the next week, he had the quarter he had taken, plus his own "money FOR Jesus"!
Unfortunately, my then two-year-old's misunderstanding becomes the mind frame of many Christians. Many of us continue to live year after year looking for what God can give to us, rather than what we can give to God. We, too, fail to understand that Christianity isn't about what God can do for us, it is about what He has called us to do for Him.
What delight there is in giving to God, to giving ourselves to Him! To fully realize the joy that overflows when we are seeking what we can do for Him, rather than focusing on what He can do for us! The psalmist said: Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4).
What are you seeking? Could you really be satisfied with anything less than the outpouring of the blessing and favor that comes from seeking HIM? As Matthew 6:31-33 says in The Message Bible: What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Deceit, Disobedience, Destruction
It's so easy to be deceived. If for just a split second we think that we don't have to do exactly what God said, we can fall into Satan's trap. If we listen to a voice other than God's, we follow a path that leads to destruction. Ask the man of God in 1 Kings 13.
A man of God went to then King Jeroboam and prophesied. He witnessed miracles as amazing as the ones Moses witnessed before Pharoah. How humbled he must have been to be so close to what God was doing.
The man of God had specific instructions: "You must not eat bread or drink water or return by the way you came."--1 Kings 13:10. After witnessing God move, he started out as God instructed, going down a different road.
The man of God was on a complete fast until he returned to Judah. He was hungry and thirsty. God had said no food or water. He was going back a different way, and maybe the way back was even longer. How long before he could eat?
As so often happens, in all our lives, he met temptation. Temptation came in the form, not of a serpent like in the garden, or some obvious sin to be avoided, but as an old prophet.
Satan knew where the man of God was vulnerable. He knew who he would listen to. King Jereboam had urged him to stay and eat. He refused. But an old prophet offering food? The hungry man of God couldn't resist a meal offered by one he believed to be a fellow prophet.
Satan knows how, when, and where to strike. He won't hit us in places where we are sure to avoid the trap he is setting. He hits us where we are vulnerable. He tells us what we want to believe.
The man of God didn't know as he ate that the meal would be his last. I imagine him sitting there, stuffing his face, justifying his disobedience to the almighty God, when the old prophet, used by God, told him of his fate: "You came back and ate bread and drank water in the place where he told you not to eat or drink. Therefore your body will not be buried in the tomb of your fathers."--1 Kings 13:22.
How downcast he must have been when he left that place! And how quickly the Bible records that God dealt with his disobedience: "As he went on his way, a lion met him on the road and killed him, and his body was thrown down on the road"--1 Kings 13:24.
How sad! The man of God had prophesied events that would happen years later and seen God perform mighty miracles! But he didn't follow God's instructions. He started out strong, but he didn't follow through.
The price of disobedience is high!! Remember the choice God game the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 30:15: "See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction." If we are disobedient, we will suffer consequences for not following the directions that God has laid out before us. But if we obey God, He blesses us, and we will be able to say as Paul did in 2 Timothy 4:7 "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."
A man of God went to then King Jeroboam and prophesied. He witnessed miracles as amazing as the ones Moses witnessed before Pharoah. How humbled he must have been to be so close to what God was doing.
The man of God had specific instructions: "You must not eat bread or drink water or return by the way you came."--1 Kings 13:10. After witnessing God move, he started out as God instructed, going down a different road.
The man of God was on a complete fast until he returned to Judah. He was hungry and thirsty. God had said no food or water. He was going back a different way, and maybe the way back was even longer. How long before he could eat?
As so often happens, in all our lives, he met temptation. Temptation came in the form, not of a serpent like in the garden, or some obvious sin to be avoided, but as an old prophet.
Satan knew where the man of God was vulnerable. He knew who he would listen to. King Jereboam had urged him to stay and eat. He refused. But an old prophet offering food? The hungry man of God couldn't resist a meal offered by one he believed to be a fellow prophet.
Satan knows how, when, and where to strike. He won't hit us in places where we are sure to avoid the trap he is setting. He hits us where we are vulnerable. He tells us what we want to believe.
The man of God didn't know as he ate that the meal would be his last. I imagine him sitting there, stuffing his face, justifying his disobedience to the almighty God, when the old prophet, used by God, told him of his fate: "You came back and ate bread and drank water in the place where he told you not to eat or drink. Therefore your body will not be buried in the tomb of your fathers."--1 Kings 13:22.
How downcast he must have been when he left that place! And how quickly the Bible records that God dealt with his disobedience: "As he went on his way, a lion met him on the road and killed him, and his body was thrown down on the road"--1 Kings 13:24.
How sad! The man of God had prophesied events that would happen years later and seen God perform mighty miracles! But he didn't follow God's instructions. He started out strong, but he didn't follow through.
The price of disobedience is high!! Remember the choice God game the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 30:15: "See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction." If we are disobedient, we will suffer consequences for not following the directions that God has laid out before us. But if we obey God, He blesses us, and we will be able to say as Paul did in 2 Timothy 4:7 "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."
Monday, April 2, 2012
Thirsty for God
Lord, I am parched. Thirsty.
I haven't felt well for a couple of weeks. That spring flu/allergy thing going on. Not a big deal, but I still didn't feel like myself for a few days. During that time, I turned my focus to physical preservation and away from spiritual sustenance. The thing about our physical needs is they scream at us to be met. They insist that we respond. I am understanding even more the reason that fasting is such a vital discipline. It gives us the opportunity to bring our bodies, which can be so demanding, to their rightful place in line. Spiritual needs met. Then physical.
We live in a physical world. We tend to identify physical needs that we have and not only meet them but indulge them. We have difficulty bringing our bodies into submission. We can be overwhelmed not only by our physical needs but by our physical desires. We are in tune with the things we see, feel, touch, taste, hear.
I have spent two weeks attending to my physical needs at the expense of my spiritual needs. As I have begun to feel better, I have become aware of my spiritual thirst.
Lord, I am parched. I feel dry. I need your water. I want you; I need you.
David, too, had times that he was driven by self-preservation. God had appointed him king, but David still had struggles. His son, Absalom challenged David and tried to kill him (2 Samuel 15 - 18). It was during that time that David probably wrote Psalm 63: God, you are my God.
I search for you.
I thirst for you
like someone in a dry, empty land
where there is no water.
Imagine the thirst of someone in a desert with no water. Can you get a sense of how your body would ache for water in the scorching heat of the day as your throat was throbbing from being so dry? How you would fight for just a few drops of water to quench your thirst? How the need for water would be the one thing on your mind, driving you each step of the way?
So was David's thirst for God. He was driven as if by the thirst of a man in the desert with nothing to drink. With a thirst that could only be quenched by God. He was obsessive in his search for God who would satisfy the thirsting of his soul.
So I want to be in my search for God! Only He can satisfy this ache in my spirit. I am keenly aware of the need to have Him flow in, through, over me. I don't want just a few drops. I don't want to sip it. I want to gulp the waters of His Spirit. As the psalmist said in Psalm 42: As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When may I come to see God's face?
"Lord, I am thirsty for you. Thirsty for your presence. Thirsty for your guidance. Thirsty for your purpose. Thirsty for your mercies. Thirsty for your grace. Thirsty for your direction. Thirsty for your embrace. Thirsty for your peace. Thirsty for your Word. Thirsty for your Voice. Thirsty for your love."
But may my thirst for Him never be satisfied! May I never get "filled up"!
"Lord, I want always to be seeking more of You. To have You spilling out of me, into the lives of others. May I seek not just to quench my thirst but may I seek to be poured out into a world that desperately needs you."
I haven't felt well for a couple of weeks. That spring flu/allergy thing going on. Not a big deal, but I still didn't feel like myself for a few days. During that time, I turned my focus to physical preservation and away from spiritual sustenance. The thing about our physical needs is they scream at us to be met. They insist that we respond. I am understanding even more the reason that fasting is such a vital discipline. It gives us the opportunity to bring our bodies, which can be so demanding, to their rightful place in line. Spiritual needs met. Then physical.
We live in a physical world. We tend to identify physical needs that we have and not only meet them but indulge them. We have difficulty bringing our bodies into submission. We can be overwhelmed not only by our physical needs but by our physical desires. We are in tune with the things we see, feel, touch, taste, hear.
I have spent two weeks attending to my physical needs at the expense of my spiritual needs. As I have begun to feel better, I have become aware of my spiritual thirst.
Lord, I am parched. I feel dry. I need your water. I want you; I need you.
David, too, had times that he was driven by self-preservation. God had appointed him king, but David still had struggles. His son, Absalom challenged David and tried to kill him (2 Samuel 15 - 18). It was during that time that David probably wrote Psalm 63: God, you are my God.
I search for you.
I thirst for you
like someone in a dry, empty land
where there is no water.
Imagine the thirst of someone in a desert with no water. Can you get a sense of how your body would ache for water in the scorching heat of the day as your throat was throbbing from being so dry? How you would fight for just a few drops of water to quench your thirst? How the need for water would be the one thing on your mind, driving you each step of the way?
So was David's thirst for God. He was driven as if by the thirst of a man in the desert with nothing to drink. With a thirst that could only be quenched by God. He was obsessive in his search for God who would satisfy the thirsting of his soul.
So I want to be in my search for God! Only He can satisfy this ache in my spirit. I am keenly aware of the need to have Him flow in, through, over me. I don't want just a few drops. I don't want to sip it. I want to gulp the waters of His Spirit. As the psalmist said in Psalm 42: As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When may I come to see God's face?
"Lord, I am thirsty for you. Thirsty for your presence. Thirsty for your guidance. Thirsty for your purpose. Thirsty for your mercies. Thirsty for your grace. Thirsty for your direction. Thirsty for your embrace. Thirsty for your peace. Thirsty for your Word. Thirsty for your Voice. Thirsty for your love."
But may my thirst for Him never be satisfied! May I never get "filled up"! "Lord, I want always to be seeking more of You. To have You spilling out of me, into the lives of others. May I seek not just to quench my thirst but may I seek to be poured out into a world that desperately needs you."
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