Hi Folks,

After getting my feet wet with a Yahoo 360° blog and a Blogger blog, I felt ready to move to something else. Both provide a great service, and I appreciate them. But I've moved my blogger to my own domain: www.apprehendinggrace.com. I hope you'll visit me there.

Grace & peace,Sandy

Not Always Faithful

I've been avoiding my blog! I'm in the process of transferring from one blog service (Yahoo) to another (we'll see which one wins out!). Hence, whatever I write here must be transferred there, wherever there is. I know others who have decided to write a blog and have it up and running in what seems to me to be minutes. And of course, all the blog services make that promise. But what is minutes to others has been months for me. Aargh!

So lately I've been reminding myself a lot that God has uniquely gifted each of us and no, I'm not particularly lacking in intelligence just because I can't get my new blog to work! :-) And even if I were inordinately lacking in intelligence God would still be over-the-top wild about me! And in order to avoid reminding myself of these things over and over again I've been avoiding blogging.

I've been avoiding blogging so that my self image doesn't take a hit each time I try and fail at making the conversion. I'm not proud of this. I'm not proud that not being able to accomplish this technical task makes me feel stupid (there, I said the word instead of couching it kindly as "lacking in intelligence"). I'm not proud that my approach has been to avoid the issue altogether.

One maxim I've learned is that when things seem to be happening in an unusual way, look for what's behind it. Is God at work? (Well, the answer to that one is always "yes" because God is always at work in our lives.) Perhaps better stated, the question should be "What is God trying to teach me by getting my attention with these unusual circumstances?"

It doesn't make sense to me that transferring blog services should be so difficult for me, so this morning I am asking "what might God be trying to teach me?" I can come up with several thoughts on my own, but the answer requires listening for His voice and to His Spirit. Here are my potential thoughts...

• God is giving me opportunities to practice not becoming frustrated when things don't move as quickly as I'd like or when I'm not able to accomplish what I think I should be able to accomplish -- and by giving me opportunities to practice this, He is teaching me patience


• God is reminding me that I'm not as smart as I would like to think I am (a little dose of humility is always good for us)


• God is teaching me about my need to rely on others (after all, we are a Body that is to work together, not just individual parts that work on their own)


• God is demonstrating how little it takes for me to be unfaithful to a task He has called me (revealing that I lack perseverence and that my heart condition is not as undivided as He would like it to be)


• God is teaching me about His faithfulness by demonstrating to me my own lack of faithfulness (His faithfulness so far surpasses my own -- and this lesson translates to every other area -- His mercy so far surpasses my own, His goodness so far surpasses my own, His love so far surpasses my own, His justice so far surpasses my own, etc.)

Wow! Since all of those possibilities occurred to me in the short span of five minutes or so, I'm guessing that He's doing all of those things. The one that shouts at me the loudest, however, is the last one. I am thankful that the God I serve is so infinitely more faithful than I am. Praise His precious Name. And if a little technological frustration is what it takes to remind me of that, I'll take it. Lord, You are so infinitely good to me! Thank You!

(And to my readers...I apologize for "being gone" for the past 6 weeks and I'm working on being faithful to you! Be blessed!)

Morning Prayers

Something God reminded me this morning...staring at my prayer list and praying are two very different things! Oops! Forgive me Lord, that my mind so easily wanders.

Cursed or Blessed? Jeremiah 17:5-8

I’l bet many of you know Jeremiah 17:7-8. It’s an often quoted passage. I love to read it.

But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. (NIV)

Did you know that it follows Jeremiah 17:5-6? I’m guessing maybe you didn’t. Or at least you don’t know verses 5 and 6 as well as you know verses 7 and 8.

This is what the LORD says: "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. (NIV)

This is not the only place in Scripture where God clearly lays out the basis for blessings and curses. I’m so thankful He does that. He doesn’t make me wonder what it takes to gain His approval. And He doesn’t bury His instructions in the middle of complicated discussions I can’t understand. He says simply "This is what the Lord says: ‘Cursed is the one who trusts in man...But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord..."

Such a simple statement...sometimes so hard to implement. I’m afraid that I put my trust in mere humans more often than I think. I may not consciously turn my heart from the Lord, but there is a subtleness to turning our hearts away from God and toward humans or things humans have made that creeps into my daily life.

When I need to finish a work project before the end of the day am I trusting in my own strength or am I trusting in the Lord? When I have to see a doctor, am I trusting in the doctor or in the Lord? Don’t hear what I’m not saying. I’m not suggesting that I don’t work hard to finish the project or that I don’t see a doctor when I’m sick. But even doing those things, I can have an attitude of trusting God or trusting in man.

What keeps this attitude alive in you from day to day, moment to moment? Here’s 7 ideas. Pick one or two and begin to practice or work on improving in that area:

1. Start every day by greeting the Lord and acknowledging Him as sovereign over all that will happen that day.
2. Train yourself to pray often — when things are going well and when things are falling apart. Quick sentence prayers connect you to God on an ongoing basis.
3. Put things in front of you that will remind you to look to God. That might be a note in your DayTimer or on your bathroom mirror, a screensaver on your computer, or a bracelet around your wrist. Use anything that will remind you to seek God.
4. Learn to see God at work and in nature. Learning to see Him requires looking for him, so train yourself to look for Him by pausing several times to look around and ask God to reveal Himself to you in your surroundings. (Yes, that means pausing from your busy-ness.)
5. Read about spiritual formation and spiritual disciplines. Try any of these books: The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. There’s an updated version in modern English. The Life You’ve Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People by John Ortberg Celebration of Disciplines: The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard Foster The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer
6. Stop reading and practice what you’re learning!
7. Be grateful. I think grateful goes beyond thankful. It’s easy to be thankful but grateful goes all the way to the heart. The difference in the definition of these two words in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary (www.m-w.com/dictionary/) is interesting. Here’s an example:

• thankful: conscious of benefit received
• grateful: appreciative of benefits received b: expressing gratitude
• Additional definitions carry the same theme — thankful is a consciousness of benefits while grateful is an appreciation of benefits. I want to not only be thankful for what God has done, is doing and will do; I want also to be grateful.

I love the illustration God uses earlier in Jeremiah: "As a belt clings to a person’s waist, so I created Judah and Israel to cling to me," says the LORD." (Jeremiah 13:11a, NLT).

Lord, we were created to cling to You. Help me to cling to You every minute of every day!

Let me know if there are things you'd add to my list of 7. Which of the 7 is easiest for you? Which is most difficult?

I Don't Make New Year's Resolutions...

I don't make New Year's resolutions...especially when I don't get around to blogging about them until January 24. Oops!

New Year's resolutions just seem like things that are destined to make me feel bad about myself because I can pretty much assure you that whatever I resolve to do or not do, I'm going to weaken at some point. And then I'm going to feel like a failure. So why set myself up for that?
That doesn't mean I don't pursue growing and improving. It's just that I don't consider them to be resolutions. Resolutions always seem to be something I'm going to "try" to do. I prefer to approach growing and improving through training not trying.

Here's what I mean: I could try to run a marathon tomorrow. There is a 100% probability that I'd fail! A better approach would be to begin training tomorrow for a marathon that is sometime this summer. If I train consistently and well, I reduce my probability of failure considerably...perhaps down to zero! Resolutions feel a lot like trying.

Instead there are two areas in which I hope to train myself this coming year. Both involve my language, but I know the words I use also impact on how I think and how I influence others.

1) I frequently say "I’m so stupid." That’s not a true statement. I am not stupid. Sometimes I do something stupid, but not nearly as often as I accuse myself of it. I usually use the phrase when I’ve made a bad play in a game, forgotten how to accomplish something on the computer, or done something equally as inoccuous. That's not stupid, it's just not being perfect. And guess what!? I'm not perfect! I'm not even close. I know that...so why do I beat myself up for it?

2) I frequently say that "I have to" do something when referring to something that I am privileged to do. When I use the phrase, it often sounds like I’m complaining about it. That’s wrong. For example, I’ll often say "I have to prepare for a Bible study" or "Saturday I have to prepare for the nursing home service on Sunday." Instead, I’m going to say "I’ve set aside Saturday to prepare for our church service on Sunday." or "I'm studying tonight to prepare for our Bible study on Wednesday." It's the difference between conveying that I'm upholding my end of an obligation and conveying that I am preparing for something I'm blessed to be a part of.

Words mean things and they impact how we think about what’s happening around (and inside) us. I know that my "have to's" sometimes impacted my attitude toward things that I am really blessed to participate in. I want my words to have a positive impact on me and those around me.
So I've put myself in training to no longer use either phrase. I've asked the people around me to correct me and when I do slip up I'm correcting myself by reiterating that I'm not stupid, I'm actually quite intelligent or reminding myself how blessed I am to have opportunities to participate in the things I'm involved in. If you catch me mumbling that I'm stupid or talking about things I "have to" do, please correct me.

How's your language? Are there phrases you use that subtly (or not so subtly) change how you view yourself, others or activities in your life? If so, I invite you to join me "in training!"

Want to read more about training vs. trying? Authors John Ortberg, Laurie Pederson and Judson Poling give a great discussion of it in their book aptly titled Growth: Training vs. Trying (Pursuing Spiritual Transformation) (copyright 2000 by The Willow Creek Association, published by Zondervan).

God Any Advice for God?

"Who is able to advise the Spirit of the Lord? Who knows enough to be his teacher or counselor? Has the Lord ever needed anyone's advise? Does he need instruction about what is good or what is best?" Isaiah 40:13-14 (NLT)

As I read this passage this morning I was struck at how often I am guilty of "giving the Lord advise" in my prayers. Does He need my advise? Obviously not. Does He need my counsel? Somehow, I don't think so!

I'm very thankful that we have a God who regularly overlooks my poor choice of wording when I pray, that He sees my heart instead of just hearing my words. Sometimes I mispeak and God hears the good in my heart instead of the poorly worded request that comes from my lips. If I'm honest with myself, though, I know that there are other times when I've "cleaned up" the words I speak but the sentiment of my heart truly is to manipulate or "instruct" God in what needs to happen in a given situation. How arrogant of me!

Have you ever prayed "Lord, please help this other person ____________________" (fill in the blank), when what you mean in your heart is "Lord, let this person do what I want them to do"? Were you secretly trying to give God instructions or counsel about what He should do? You may have convinced yourself that you were praying what's best for that person, yet what you were really praying was the equivalent of giving God instructions.

Although I often fail, I try to pray Scripture rather than solutions. Once while teaching on this subject I was asked the following question: "I have a friend who is about to lose his job. Shouldn't I pray for him to keep his job?" My response was that while we know that it's God's will for the man to provide for his family, we don't know that it is God's will for him to have that particular job. As we learned more about the situation it became clear that the friend was in jeopardy of losing his job because his boss was asking him to do unethical things and he was refusing. In the midst of the crisis of needing to provide for his family both he and his friends were losing sight of the fact that God may have orchestrated these circumstances to move him into a new position. If I had prayed that he not lose his job, I might have been praying against the will of God. Rather, if I prayed that God would enable him to continue to provide for his family, enable him to see the "way out" (1 Cor 10:13) of this situation, continue to teach him His ways and conform him to the image of Christ, I would clearly be praying in God's will.

This doesn't always come easy for me. I'm a person who seeks solutions. It's the way my mind works. I see or hear of a problem and my mind immediately begins to brainstorm solutions. It's one of the ways I tend to be more like men than women. When women share problems with their husbands they are often frustrated because their husbands go into "fixit" mode immediately instead of just listening and being compassionate. I am more like that husband. When I hear a problem I automatically go into "fixit" mode. I've had to train myself to listen longer and then make my suggestions in a milder way than comes naturally to me. (I am admittedly better at this sometimes than at other times.)

This personality trait serves me well in many areas of my life. But it's totally inappropriate in my relationship with God. God doesn't need me to offer suggestions about how to solve a problem. He has already put the solution in motion. Scripture teaches us that He is always at work in our circumstances, past, present and future. My job is to watch and to listen. If my prayers were more "watch and listen" focused, I undoubtedly would have a more Christ-like walk with the Lord. (Ouch!)

Lord, as I look to 2008, help me to NOT (advertently or inadvertently) give You advice and instructions. Your wisdom is greater.