Everyday Lessons. . .

Usually the Lord speaks to me in one of two ways, either through reading His Word or by teaching me through everyday life situations.

Take yesterday for instance, it was a nice sunny day here in our area of Thailand, so I did laundry.  I had the laundry hanging out on the clothes line, blowing in the wind.  Generally things dry quickly in the Thailand heat, so several hours later I went out to see if the clothes were dry. 

Some of the clothes were dry so I started to take them off the line, and that’s when I saw it. . .gecko poop.  Ewwww!  There on the collar of two of my husband’s shirts, and on a bed cover.  Yuck!

I immediately thought, I just cleaned these clothes and here they are dirty already!  And that is when the Lord spoke to my heart. . .”Just like when you come to Me asking for forgiveness, asking Me to cleanse you; and then, a short time later you are back again asking for forgiveness and cleansing for the very same thing.”

I stopped my indignant march to the washer to rewash the three items.  Oh, wow!  How true.  Well, of course, it is the Lord addressing this issue with me.   

I immediately thought of how I had gone to the Lord about letting other people’s anger or negative actions toward me lead me to become angry as well.  I know that returning anger for anger is not how the Lord wants me to react, and yet, I find myself returning to the Lord for forgiveness for that very thing.

The Lord then put Paul’s words on my heart.  In Romans 7:15 Paul says "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate."

I have been there!  I want to be fast to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger, and then I falter.  Thankfully the Lord is doing a work in me on this, and I am getting better at not returning anger for anger.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not walk around angry (my normal disposition is joyful), but I do sometimes let other people’s anger make me react in a way I don’t want too.

James 1:19 says "Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;"

Here is, Shoey, a gecko we took a picture of when we first moved to Thailand.  We called him that to remind us to look in our shoes, because you never know what might crawl into your shoe in Thailand.  J

“Thank you Lord for the daily lessons you teach me, and thank you for always welcoming me when I come back again and again asking for forgiveness.”

Blessings,

April

I Did It!

‘Did what?’, you might ask.  Well. . .

I gave my ‘will’ to God.

Okay, okay, I can guess what you are thinking. . .“Wait a minute, you are a missionary, what do you mean you gave your will to God?  Didn’t you do that a long time ago?”

Well the truth is, I thought I had!  But praise God for the Holy Spirit and His work in me as I read a book that opened my eyes to the truth.  The truth is that I had not completely given my will to the Lord.

So to quench your curiosity, I will tell you that I had not given the Lord my will when it came to food.

I would constantly ask the Lord to work in me and through me, giving Him my every moment. . .and yet. . .that is not how I lived when it came to food.  You see, I would be loving and obedient to the Lord until ‘the cookies called’, and then all bets were off.  I would ignore the voice telling me to “step away from the cookies”.   I would seek to satisfy myself by eating, even though I was eating for every reason except that I was hungry.  I would eat because I was having a bad day, or because someone was cruel to me, or, or, or.  The list goes on.  There were plenty of scenarios that (in my mind) warranted my indulgence in eating when I wasn’t even remotely hungry.  And the sad thing is, after the indulgence I never felt better.  I still had the feelings that I had before turning to food, plus then I also had the guilt.

The book that I read explained that God made our bodies perfectly, and that if we would just listen to our bodies and eat when we are hungry and stop when we are full we would be just the size God intended us to be.  (Of course there can be medical reasons that some people are overweight, but with me that was not the case.)

The Lord really spoke to my heart and I could see that what I was doing was sinning.  I was keeping part of my life from the Lord.  I had put up a wall between myself and the Lord when it came to my over indulgence with food.  The last thing I wanted was any sort of barrier between me and the Lord.  So I got on my knees and asked the Lord for forgiveness, and asked Him to strengthen me and teach me how to eat like I should.

As Jesus said in Luke 22:42  ". . .not my will, but yours. . ."

The Lord has been so gracious, and the forgiveness has been so freeing.  Some of you may think that obedience means more rules to follow, but I found it to be just the opposite.  I found obedience to be incredibly freeing.  Why?  Because God knows what is best for us.  Gone was the guilt and the shame, in its place was peace and joy.  You can’t beat that!

I immediately started listening to the Lord, and waiting until I was hungry before I ate – no matter what time it was.  And, I stopped eating when I was full.  Sometimes, I would eat just a few fork fulls and then I felt full and I would stop eating.  Other times I would eat quite a bit more before I felt full.

The Lord strengthened me as people tried to coerce me into eating more food, or teasing me about not being a member of the ‘clean your plate club’ anymore.

Not only did I really start to feel closer to the Lord, but the pounds (or kilos, as they say here in Thailand) just started to drop off.  I got the usual questions, “How small are you trying to get?” or “How much weight are you trying to lose?”  But the truth is I did not do this to lose weight.    Of course it was good that I lost weight, but that is not why I changed how I reacted around food.

For me, it was a heart issue.  For me, it was a sin issue.  I needed to address my lack of obedience to the Lord and do a U-turn, and with the Holy Spirit’s guidance I have done it.

Don’t even ask how much weight I have lost, because I do not know.  All I know is that I am enjoying eating so much more than I ever have, because now I really enjoy waiting to become hungry.  And when I do get hungry, I enjoy figuring out what I really want to eat and then I eat exactly that.

I have not given up eating any foods.  (I know from past experience, that giving up foods just makes me crave them all the more.)  In fact today I had a hot fudge sundae.  Yum!  That is what I really wanted, so that is what I had.  I couldn’t finish it all, but what I ate was delicious, and I did not mind pushing my bowl aside when I was full. 

Joshua 1:9  tells us to:  ". . .Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.""

I have had such strength from the Lord during this time, and I have been blessed to be able to share with others how the Lord has done this work in me.

So, I want to encourage you.  God wants to draw you closer to Himself.  God does not want there to be anything that acts as a barrier between you and Him.  God is a Holy, Righteous God, and it is just incredible that He allows – much less wants us to draw near to Him.  So let Him help you.  Let Him strengthen you.

Maybe it is eating that is a barrier between you and the Lord.  Maybe it is how you spend your time.  Reading, watching TV, spending time on computer. . .and yet not finding time to spend time in God’s Word.  The list goes on.  You know what you have let come between yourself and the Lord. 

So, “be strong and courageous”.  You don’t have to do it alone.  Jesus left us with a Helper, the Holy Spirit, and He is always ready and willing to help us draw closer to the Father.

I am praying that you too will give your ‘will’ completely to the God the Father.  Don’t hold back, God’s plan for you is amazing. 

Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Praise God!

Blessings,

April

Me (April) enjoying our 3 puppies:  Lil’ Squirt, Alphie & Pumpkin.