Wet Eyes- an excerpt from "When God Writes Your Love Story" by Eric and Leslie Ludy
Wet eyes are watching you! The moist eyes of Jesus, tenderly longing for you to let go of your life and hold fast to Him. His eyes are gentle as they see you stumble and scrape your knee in sin once again. He doesn't kick you when you're down, but rather he carefully stabilizes you with His mercy and grace, and helps you to your feet. He is so patient when you falter, and is ever faithful to forgive you.
His eyes are smiling as they find you longing to please Him.
Just as the little three year old child picks up a crayon and scribbles a masterpiece for his earthly father, so you scribble your very best rendition of a life honoring to your Father in heaven. And even though He might not be able to tell if it is a picture o Him or a hippo, your little scribbles of love mean everything yo you God.
His eyes are also full of pride as they observe you trusting Him. He, more than anyone, knows how difficult it is to stand against the tide. He simply wants an ordinary person to trust His nature and character, and to test His perfect faithfulness. And as Oswald Chambers has said, "If we deliberately choose to obey God, then he will tax the remotest star and the last grain of sand to assist us with all His almighty power."
Wet eyes are watching you. The caring eyes of heaven have spent too many years burning with tears of pain over your life and mine. Let us choose today to bless God's heart with the gift of loving him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Let's make those wet eyes proud.
Wow. I don't know about you, but those words touched my heart. God most definitely is using his children today to speak God inspired truths to his people. That made my eyes wet!
I just finished reading Driven By Eternity by John Bevere before reading this book by the Ludys. After that book God really challenged me to examine my heart and its motives. I began to question some of the things I've done and whether I had done it with a heart wanting to please God.
But I so do. My hearts cry is to live in a way that brings a smile to my Father and Lover's lips. And one line that particularly pricked my heart strings was where it says "His eyes are smiling as they find you longing to please him." He sees our hearts, and has seen how desperately I've tried to walk in his ways. He is so quick to forgive, I can't wrap my mind around it-I can only ask him to conform my mind to that of his! As I was listening to the simple truths revealed in the excerpt above God spoke something to my heart, and I feel like some of your hearts out there-in big wide cyber space- need to hear these same words from your father. Remember that he is the one who says "I have set the stars in place and I am the one who says to Israel 'You are mine!" (Isa. 51:16)
This same living and loving God spoke these tender words from his heart directly to mine and wants you to hear them as well, read it slowly and let him play the heartstrings of your beloved heart.
"I watch as you carefully try and draw a picture of life as you see it outlines in my word. Then when I see you color outside of the lines I fell a prick of pain because I know youre trying-but I have to show you that you messed up. I tell you in the most loving way because I don't want you to think I don't like your picture, I just want you to have the best picture possible. How my heart swells with love and pride as your tender heart receives my discipline and instruction; as you erase your mistake and try again. Such a beautiful picture you draw. Little do you know that this one picture of life you diligently work on is just one piece of the much bigger picture I have written on the hearts of my beloved children across time."
We can't accept our Daddy's love and forgiveness then rub his good name in the dirt. We must see the error of our ways and begin to live to make our Daddy's wet eyes proud. Run home to his open arms. When we fall, don't assume we have no hope. Jesus' name holds all the hope we need. His hands contain all the strength we need. And Jesus' heart is exploding with all the love we could ever need. Let him wrap you in his merciful arms and then begin to live in order to make His eyes brimming with tears proud.
"He has removed our rebellious acts as far away from us as the east is from the west. The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him." -Psalm 103:12-13
Live to make "wet eyes proud"
Dont Blink
This morning at my church Pastor Jon continued our series-Relationship Revolution. PJ spoke on parenting. Why would I decide to blog after hearing a message on parenting? I'm not a parent. No but I have them and I know A LOT of kids who have them, or the lack there of. He shared how quickly your kids can grow up. Well me, I'm on the reverse end of the spectrum-I'm the kid. The one who grows up in the 'blink of an eye.' All the days of being little and having no responsibility are gone. Youre only little for a short time, enjoy it while you can, be thankful for the little things. While my parents have watched me grow up fast, all the time I have with them has gone by fast. Im graduated and going to college, when did that happen? Over a short 14 or so years I've went from the little kid in sunday school to God blessing me with an awesome church where he's implemented me as a leader and drawn me deeper into his arms than I ever thought possible..who blinked? Was it me or my parents?
I don't want to ever come to a place where I take God's blessing for granted. Lately some of those blessings hes been dealing with for me, are my parents. They are AMAZING!!!! God is so great to bless me in this way. So that is one of the first things I got out of the message.
Pastor Jon also shared some things that some jr highers shared anonymously in relation to their parents. They said how much it hurt when their mom or dad dissaproved, or things like "my parents say I never tell them that I love them, but I do and they just never listen." Things like this. Their notes broke my heart. As I was thinking about that, and how many hurting people produce hurting kids God spoke to me. While any parents makes mistakes, God's grace covers all mistakes, but you have to go to him and repent and turn from your sinful ways. So for the kids and teens and now adults who have had hard relationships with their parents I pray for! God will fill the needs in his children's lives. Those whose parents werent always there, whose dad left, whose mom never listens, God will bring others into you life! If the parents dont come to a place of humbling themselves before God and heading down the right path God will bring those role models, the ones who will invest their time, love and heart into these hurting kids. God is the ultimate Father to the fatherless. He is so merciful that he hears the 14 year old daughter's cries for a father that loves her, and he comes in to fill the need then puts a godly man of integrity in her life to show her that she deserves better. The son that tries his best to impress his father but just gets beat later that night is restored to his Heavenly father and sees that he doesnt have to follow suit, he can break the cycle. God will hold up the weak, there is always hope in him, but he wants us as christains to do our part.
God spoke to my heart through the Jr Highers comments. He said "You hear that, you say you want to be the face of love to the people around you? You want to reach out with my hands, have my heart? This breaks my heart. My children are hurting and you can be one of those who fills the void." yeah. Soak that in. Every kind word I say to the hurting, every hug and smile is a balm that can be placed on their hurting hearts. God wants us to reach out, why not start out with the ones you see every week. While I cant be a mom to these people, I can love on them. I can let God work on my selfish tendancies and show my to love even more unconditionally. God please do that!
In conlcusion, if you can, jump on itunes.com and search for Resurrection Life Chruch of Richland and listen to these messges. God is awesome. I am going to be thankful for the little things and not take it all for advantage. I'm going to look at the Jr Highers in a different light, not in a pity, but genuine compassion and love knowing that God can use me to heal the hurts they have. Lastly, I'm not going to blink.
God, I can hardly find words to tell you whats on my heart. Thank you for how youve spoken to me and numerous others on all of this. HELP me to be more thankful, more selfless. God I SOOOOO want to be someone to love on those who are hurting. Help me to not get selfish and prideful, let me always look for ways to be used by you. Ways to make the lasting impression on the people around me. Ways to tell others about you, to leave a lasting legacy. Help me to store up gold and silver not just stray. Lord you are so loving, so merciful, thank you that we can always be redeemed in you..God no words can say it better than THANK YOU. Use us God!
Lay Down My Guns
I came across this on youtube. I've loved Sanctus Real for awhile now, and I love the song Lay Down My Guns from their most recently released album, We Need Eachother. This interview is with Matt Hammitt the lead sing on the subject of that song and then there is a video that is amazing...please watch it. Its intense. I hope it gives you hope in your life that we can find rest in GOD and also, I hope it moves you to pray for our soldiers and the leaders of this country. We are blessed to live here, even when its hard to remember that, its none the less true.
Interview with Matt Hammitt...
JFH (John): What's the story behind "Lay Down My Guns?"
Matt: There's this guy named Doug McKelvey who contributed some of the lyrics for "I'm Not Alright" on the last record and he was really the first cowrite we used with the band besides producers who had contributed stuff here and there. What he had basically done with that song, "I'm Not Alright," is he came in and had done such a good job with helping us edit the lyrics and taking them to the next level. So we had been looking to get stuff from him ever since, if it works. So instead of just cowriting, he'd send us some random lyrics. We actually weren't going to use any outside writers on this record, and then Doug sent over kind of a b-file of extra lyrics and he had a worship song that had the line, "Lay down your guns, lift up your hands." And I just liked that one line. We didn't use any of the other lyrics and I basically wrote a whole new concept on that one line, and then even changed that line a little bit. Because it immediately made me think of the war that's going on right now and what soldiers go through, and just thinking of these guys away from their families for so long... They basically live to defend themselves in our country. And how good does it feel when you can finally come home and set your guns down and be able to not be on your guard anymore. Just be able to have that release, y'know? And then it made me think of how that's life too. That, while we're on this earth, kind of like spiritually and emotionally, we have so many defenses up all of the time that we have to have because we have an enemy. What would it feel like? How good would it feel to get to heaven and lay down our guns and lift up our hands and learn to completely love again. It's really just a metaphor using the war in Iraq as a metaphor for our spiritual journey. I like that song a lot.
I'm Tired Of My Hands Getting In The Way
So I've heard of some different kinds of 'visions' God can give someone, the sort of 'open' ones where you basically feel like your in another place, or a snap shot. Like a picture that flashes, then I guess there are 'closed'. More of a thought placed in your mind...
During the After Party at my youth group a song called Teach Me How To Pray was playing by Jason Upton. One line says somehting a long the lines of "I'm tired of my hands getting in the way." God has been showing me how even though I KNOW God is able to do ANYTHING, I have issues with trying things in my own strength. Even though all the strength in the width of eternity and more is at my fingertips, sometimes I try things on my own...which ends up failing...so as that song was playing God gave me a sort of 'closed' vision you could say..
I was reaching at something, trying to move it. And as my hands would reach out for it I saw that Jesus, I just knew it was him, couldnt exactly see him, he reached out to grab the same object but stopped when he saw my hands in the way. He then came along side me, placed his hands on my shoulders and reached for my hands that he folded and placed infront of me then grabbed the object himself.
Then it was like I was trying to speak to someone and kept stumbling over my words and Jesus again walked up to me, placed his hands around his neck, reached out and placed his hands over mine and I was able to say whatever I had been trying to say.
Likewise, I saw myself walking on this seemingly smooth path but I kept falling. I would fall and get back up and keep going but then trip. I saw myself fall and this time I was having trouble getting up and Jesus came up and knelt down infront of me. he grabbed me by both shoulders and looked into my eyes then we stood up togehter. He then put his arm around my side and we walked on together.
The last snapshot I got was me sitting down writing in a notebook. I looked frustrated and worried he came up along side me and knelt down once more, he looked at what I was writing. I didnt even look at him I just kept writing in a fury. He placed his hand over a page of what I had written and tilted my chin up to look at his face. Again, I couldnt SEE his face...but I was looking at it. He then looked down at my hand gripping the pen. I followed his eyes and watched as he unfolded my hand and slipped the pen out of his hand.
Thats a lot of rambling kinda, but yeah. The last snapshot kinda hit me the most. I am by no means perfect, but as I try to live my life for God he is still pointing out the things that need work. My dependence on him needs to be heightened. I of course trust him for all things, but like I said, there are times I jump ahead without taking the needed time and deep prayer to hear God's voice clearly on an issue. So he is working on me to really pay attention when I go into something, to make sure and depend on him and not try and do things in my own strength....so not sure why I shared that. But I wanted to. So say a prayer for me in my endevour to purge the things in my life that are hindering my walk from going even DEEPER, cause there is so much more of God to discover!
"Only in returning to me and waiting for me will you be saved. In quitness and confidence is your strengh." - Isa. 30:15
Janice Marie Leo
I wrote this and then read it at Jan’s funeral, I tried to sum her up, which is impossible but these were some things that stood out in my mind..I’ll miss her, but she left an AMAZING legacy!
What can I say about Jan? I loved her as if she was an aunt. One of the things that stand out in my mind is when we took her classes at SHARE. From spending hours with her in the stuffy "rainbow" room to dissecting cow eyes she always had a smile on her face. I remember the lunch times we had at McDonalds on Tuesdays, when my mom, Sue Stuut and Jan would scold us teens about our unhealthy food. While Jan sat there, never without her Dr. Pepper. During classes she would often tell jokes and pause for our response with a smirk on her face. As we all stared back wide eyed in confusion, she would erupt into laughter but always make sure to assure us that she was laughing WITH us and not AT us.
She was an amazing teacher and she loved it so much. She said she wanted to prepare us for college homework, with the homework load she laid on us I think we’d be ready for going to Mars! Even with the amazing teacher she was its not the thing I loved most about her. Besides the fact that her being in my life brought Aliscia, one of my best friends to me, I admire her most for her love of Jesus.
Not only did she say she loved Jesus she lived it. It was impossible to come in contact with her and walk away doubting if she was sincere. She was constantly bringing up the hope in a seemingly hopeless situation. She would speak into my life often. Most times she would do so until I was annoyed. I was annoyed only because I knew that the point she was making was true and that I was in fault on my position in a situation. I can see her sitting in the rocking chair in my living room during one of the lady’s prayer times, she would get so excited when they talked about God and what he was doing. Her face would light up and she would begin to speak louder and louder as the other ladies joined in all talking at once.
When I look back Jan didn’t only leave a legacy of being a good school teacher. For me she left a dual part legacy. First and foremost she was a genuine example of living sacrificially and unashamedly for the love of her life- Jesus. Secondly she showed me things about God and His love in ways I hadn’t seen before. Ultimately I feel God called her to be a teacher, at least in my life. She was always praising God and praying for others, thinking about other people rather than herself. The last time I saw her, just last week she was praising God and praying for Dwight’s aching back. To see her praying for others while we were all lifting HER up in prayer was a humbling sight.
I would have to say that the last thing she taught me was to see that God is always good and deserves all our praise not just when we are on the mountains, but in the valleys as well.
