August 2014

When You Really Need to See God

Megan Breedlove August 25, 2014 0Comment

Only one flight away from reaching home after a week-long absence, I was waiting at the airport for my plane to arrive at the gate. I don’t mind waiting in airports; being by myself gives me a chance to, well, be by myself. I can read or surf the web for a little while without worrying about being interrupted.

But I knew my children were eager for me to be home. They had called me almost every evening during my absence, and that day (as my husband told me through text messaging) they were getting anxious to have me back. So when my plane pulled up to the gate, I took a picture of it, and I texted it to my husband so he could show it to the kids and tell them Mommy’s plane was almost ready to bring me home.

I expected to receive a text back from him that said something like, “Yay! They can’t wait!” But the text I got instead said, “They want to see a picture of YOU. Take a selfie.” So I managed to take a selfie that didn’t make me look like I was looking into a fun-house mirror (it’s always awkward to get the right angle), and I sent it.

I thought it was sweet that they wanted to see me, not just my plane. I understood why. When you miss somebody, you want to see the person herself, not just a picture of a metal tube with wings. When you long for someone, you want her presence, not just a shot of the vehicle that will bring her to you.

It’s the same way with God—only sometimes, we don’t realize it. Here’s what I mean: what we really need, spiritually speaking, is God’s presence. We need God Himself. The problem is that we sometimes think that what we really need are the benefits He provides—and His presence, while a nice add-on, isn’t strictly necessary.

We couldn’t be more wrong. Yes, we need God’s strength, comfort, wisdom, and so on. But they are not commodities God dispenses apart from His presence. They only come to us when we are in His presence.

When you ask God for strength, and He gives it to you, it’s because God has shown up in your situation to help you handle it. When you weep for His comfort and receive it, it’s because God Himself is there, putting His arms around you. When you need wisdom to know what to do in a particular situation, and suddenly it’s there, that’s because God Himself is nearby, sharing His thoughts with you.

Never forget that God is a very personal, intimate God who longs for a deep relationship with you. How it must grieve Him when you—or I—desperately beseech Him for things He can do for us, never realizing that what we really need is He Himself. That’s what Jesus meant when He told His followers to seek God first, and they would not only have Him, but they would have everything else they needed.

Not only that, but God won’t just sort of mail His responses to you while He sits up in heaven somewhere, distant. He’s going to deliver them to you personally, which works out great, because what you really want is not merely the gift. You want God to show up, and that’s what He’s promised to do.

Don’t set your sights so low as to ask merely for the gift when you could have the Giver, too.

Matthew 6:33—But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (ESV)

Jeremiah 29:13-14a—You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD.

Trusting in the Right Things

Megan Breedlove August 18, 2014 0Comment

Jessi in life jacket It hasn’t been a very hot summer in our part of Texas this year. We’ve only had twelve days where the temperature has reached or exceeded one hundred degrees, as opposed to twice that many days (or more!). Nonetheless, there have been enough hot days that the kids and I have gotten to go to the water park at our local YMCA several times.

The kids love the water park, especially Jessica and Lindsey. (Ellie and Kenny prefer playing inside in the Youth Zone, where they can play video games for a couple hours; Timmy stays in the nursery.) I actually love it, too. It’s fun to watch Lindsey perform swimming feats for me or to take Jessica into the deep end and play with her there.

When we go into the deep end, Jessica wears a life jacket. That way, she can do some “swimming” on her own (with me right next to her) and not be afraid she’ll sink. She wasn’t always so confident, though.

At first, even with a life jacket, Jessica wouldn’t allow me to take my hands off of her. I explained to her multiple times that with the life jacket on and Mommy right next to her, it was impossible for her to drown.

Jessica tried to have courage. “Let go,” she would say, and so I’d release her from my arms. Almost immediately, she would panic and reach for me again, relaxing only when she felt my arms around her.

She knew in her head that the life jacket would keep her afloat, but she still didn’t really trust it.

We’re like that with God, too, sometimes, aren’t we? We know in our heads that He’ll take care of us, but we still don’t really trust Him. Even though we have God within us, just as Jessica had the life jacket all around her, when we panic, we still reach for other things to provide the reassurance and security that we crave.

We don’t trust Him to be enough.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with receiving comfort from friends and family when we’re in need. The problem comes in when we rely more on them than we do on God. When we trust people to do a better job of sustaining us in our troubles than God will.

The only thing is that in order to learn to rely on God, you have to practice. Just as Jessica had to keep practicing with the help of the life jacket alone, so we need to keep practicing relying on God so that we can learn by experience that He will, indeed, keep us afloat. That’s why so many people don’t have a soul-deep trust in God: they’ve never cast themselves completely upon Him. They’ve never given Him the chance to prove that He can—and will!—bear them up. They’ve left that job primarily to other people, things, or situations. Then, when their troubles pass, their relationship with God isn’t much deeper than it was before, because He hasn’t done much for them (or so they think).

Trusting can be scary—at first. It’s not easy to trust something or someone new. But when you learn that that person or thing really is trustworthy, it’s not scary at all.

I told you earlier that Jessica no longer has a fear of letting go of me, as long as she is wearing the life jacket. That’s because she’s had enough experience with it that she trusts it. Her believe that it would support her became not just something she assented to in her head because Mommy said so, but something she has lived.

Are you living with God supporting you today? Am I? Or are we relying more on other people or things? Our trust in God will never grow as long as we look primarily to other things to comfort or sustain us.

The only way to grow our trust in God is to practice trusting Him. That means letting Him bear more of the “weight” of our troubles and watching Him handle it well.

Are you willing to cast yourself completely upon Him, spiritually speaking, and let Him support you? I don’t know the details of your situation, but I do know God, so I can guarantee you this: You won’t be disappointed.

Psalm 91:4—He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. (ESV)

Protecting Your Weak Areas

Megan Breedlove August 11, 2014 0Comment

My 2-year-old son Timmy loves to climb. Something’s up too high for him to reach? No problem! He’ll simply pull a stepstool or dining room chair over to whatever he wants to reach and climb up to it. He also climbs up on the bathroom vanity without using a stool (he has incredible upper body strength) so that he can stand on it and reach into the medicine cabinet for his toothbrush and Elmo toothpaste. And he loves to climb onto the top of the plastic playhouse we have in the yard.

The only thing is, you can’t help him when he’s climbing. “I do it myself!” he shouts if you try to help him. (In fact, that’s one of my discipline techniques with him. I say, “Timmy, you better do such-and-such right now, or…Mommy’s going to help you!”)

The other day, I was sitting at the computer, and Timmy wanted onto my lap. He climbed over the arm of the chair and onto my lap, wedging himself between me and the keyboard. He was content there for awhile, and then, he wanted to get down. All by himself, of course.

But as he got down, he stumbled, and the sharp edge of the keyboard tray caught him in the belly. As his weight carried him downward to the floor, the tray left him with a three-inch-long, red scrape.

Poor Timmy. He cried, of course, and I comforted him. I felt sorry for him, getting wounded in such a tender area.

And the thought came to me that this is exactly how Satan approaches us to tempt us: at our most tender area. In other words, where we’re weakest.

Satan doesn’t waste his time trying to tempt me to rob a bank. I don’t have any desire to do that, and that particular temptation would be easy for me to resist. Neither does Satan spend any time trying to tempt me to steal a car. I don’t want to steal a car, and it’s not something I’m likely to ever do. I’m strong in these two areas.

On the other hand, Satan knows very well that I’m much weaker in other areas, and that’s where he focuses his time. I’m much more likely to take the bait when the temptation involves such things as being impatient with my children, being lazy with housework, or being selfish.

We all have weak areas, and we all have strong areas. Maybe you’re not at all likely to murder someone, or embezzle from your company, or sell drugs to schoolchildren. Oh, but Satan knows that you are likely—perhaps even very likely—to disrespect your husband, purposely disobey traffic laws, or gossip. And he’s going to spend his time trying to hit you in those areas, where he can see more results for his work.

You and I are in a battle. It’s a spiritual battle. Make no mistake about it: the forces of evil are very real and are battling for our obedience. While it’s true that once we become Christians, evil can no longer have our souls, it’s also true that Satan’s mission is to utterly destroy us and our Christian witness.

Yet we don’t protect ourselves as we should.

We’ve all seen pictures—whether on television or in the newspapers—of SWAT teams ready for action. They carry weapons and protective gear so they can successfully carry out their mission. Their body armor is concentrated on a human being’s most vulnerable areas—the head and the chest.

Likewise, you and I need to fortify the areas in which we are spiritually vulnerable. Ephesians 6 cautions us in this regard and then gives us a list of all the ways we can do this. Do you know what these ways are? Are you regularly putting them into practice in your life?

If not, you’re leaving yourself spiritually unprotected and vulnerable to the enemy’s attack.

The good news is that God has provided armor that is sufficient to protect you from the devils schemes against you. This armor is free of charge—but it’s not automatic. You don’t find yourself automatically clothed with this armor (except salvation) just because you are a Christian. You must decide to put it on, and then take action.

Will you do it?
John 10:10—“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (ESV)

Ephesians 6:11-13— Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. (ESV)

Created by God

Megan Breedlove August 4, 2014 0Comment

My 9-year-old son Kenny has recently developed an interest in origami. He loves checking out how-to books from the library and spending hours at home folding square papers into intricate creations. He’s really good at looking at the instructions and then producing the desired outcome.

I, on the other hand, am not. Recently, Kenny tried to teach me to make an origami crane. I tried—really, I did—but I kept getting lost or doing something wrong. “Well, that’s okay. It’s only your first try,” Kenny would say. Or, “Well, that’s one way to do it. But how about you do it like this?”

I admire his abilities, especially since they are in an area in which I am not skilled. I also admire the amount of effort and persistence it takes to produce a whole dining room table full of creations, and then some.

But as impressive as Kenny’s abilities are in creating his works of art, God’s abilities in creating you and me are even more impressive.

After all, God started with nothing. No instructions, no raw materials. He uses the process of two tiny cells coming together, but it is ultimately He who grants life to the combination of cells, thereby forming a person. And He is the One who arranges for the exact combination of DNA to occur in order to produce the human being He wants to create.

Your life was not an accident.

Your particular combination of genetics, skills, and personality is not an accident.

Nor were they determined by your earthly mother and Father.

They were ordained—chosen, appointed—by God.

Just as Kenny sets out to create something he has in mind, God set out to create you. In fact, He had you in mind since before the world began. Then, at just the right time, He caused just the right DNA to combine to create the you He wanted you to be, and He breathed life into that teeny, tiny one-celled human being.

Some of you may have grown up being told that you are nothing special. Maybe you were rejected not by your parents, but by a friend, family member, or even spouse. But God didn’t think of you before the foundation of the world, and then go to all the trouble to make you just as He did, because He was creating junk. He created you according to the design of His infinite creativity and declared you to be a marvelous creation.

You, precious mom, were designed and brought to life by God. You have the particular qualities and characteristics that you do because He made you that way. Why? Two reasons. First, He has a plan for you and your life, and He made you according to the exact specifications necessary to enable you to fulfill that plan. And second—and I hope this touches you deep in your heart, just as it touches me—He wanted an intimate relationship with a person like you.

Have you ever thought about that? That God wanted a relationship with someone just like you? It’s true. No one else in this world will relate to God in exactly the same way you will, and that’s by His design.

What an incredible thought—that Almighty God, who doesn’t need anybody, wanted you and me.

Think about that this week. Let it sink into your soul.

Psalm 139:14—I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

August 2014

When You Really Need to See God

Trusting in the Right Things

Protecting Your Weak Areas

Created by God

You Missed

Priorities

I Wouldn’t Do That

Little Things

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