Discouragement...

I know a little about that lately.  We all get discouraged sometimes, but what happens when that discouragement feels so heavy and pressing it starts moving you to abandon your plans, dreams, hopes, and vision of what you thought God had for your life?  What does the future hold when life's crashing waves of struggles and pain grow so big you tire of fighting against them and just want to stop trying?  One more crashing wave and there you go...sinking to the bottom, moved and defeated by the hardest things in life.  Maybe like me, you might find yourself saying, "Why even bother fighting anymore, does it even matter and does anyone even care?" 

Well yes... it DOES matter, more than we will ever understand in this life, I believe.  What will sustain us against these giant waves life hurls at us and keep us firmly anchored to the steady course of victory and joy God has clearly planned for our lives?  

There is one and only ONE anchor for our lives and the only One who will sustain and keep us during our times of deepest discouragement and disappointments.  

Jesus.

One name, one truth.  When everything around us is shifting, disintegrating or not turning out anything like we had hoped, Jesus is the only one who will never move, never be shaken, and never fail us.  (Just because we may think He has failed us does not mean that He has.)  He is the one and only anchor for our souls, especially during the worst things life can throw at us.  Let's be honest with each other, we all struggle at times and life can just be awful, looking like there is no hope in sight. It can feel utterly impossible and sometimes your mind may yell, "Abandon ship...save yourselves!"  This my friends, is exactly when we need to find ourselves anchored. 

What does that mean?  To me it means, when you don't even know what to ask or pray for anymore you call out one name...Jesus. When your heart is crushed and you feel as if all hope is lost you give your broken heart to one Person...Jesus.  When things are impossible and there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel you watch and wait for the one and only ray of Light...Jesus. 

I know, those waves hit hard and it can be exhausting when you feel as if your are constantly fighting one after another.  But when we are anchored in Jesus and only Jesus, those waves can try to move us, but we will be in the fierce grip of One who will never be moved and One who never lets go...ever.  

"God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.  We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.  It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf."   Hebrews 6:18-20 (NIV)

I leave you with something I feel the Lord spoke to my heart the other day...

"When you are on the battlefield of this life and in the thick of the fiercest of fights and you look ahead to catch a glimpse of me as you are following, just because it looks as if I have disappeared through the smoke and you can no longer see me because the smoke is so thick, does not mean that I have left you.  I am still there and I will never leave you".

Be encouraged my friends.  Jesus, our only Anchor is there up ahead, fighting on the front lines on our behalf, through the thick of the smoke, so we have a way through it. 

He is our Blessed Hope, Anchor, and fierce warrior King.
Blessings to you~
Beth   

            

The Night of Inspiration was truly inspiring!  
Thank you to all who joined us and a very special thank you to all who helped and made the night possible:
Oscar Rodriguez (I love you!)
John & Kristen Howell of Rise Coffeehouse
Israel and Jackie Salas (Thank you Israel for the beautiful music you played during the event)
Cheri Garduno
Yolanda Gonzalez

We posted some photos from the night in the gallery if you would like to check them out.  I also wanted to share a little of what the Lord put on my heart for the night.

What inspires you?  What moves you and has the power to influence your thoughts and emotions?  What difference does inspiration make?  I believe, it is what takes something seemingly ordinary and transforms it into something extraordinary.

Inspiration- "A divine influence or action on a person believed to qualify him or her to receive and communicate sacred revelation." (Webster's Dictionary)

"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse"  Romans 1:20 (NIV)

All of creation shouts the existence of it's Creator.  His inspiration lies within everything his hands have made.  He gives life to what was lifeless.  Maybe there really is more than meets the eye. 
 
Within each one of us, lies a seed of genius just waiting to be inspired by the breath of God.  The breath of the Holy Spirit which inspires and brings life.  Then that seed will take root, grow, and finally be released for the purposes of which it was planted.  A seed that inspires and influences those around you. 

What lies within you, waiting for inspiration?  What is that thing that you hold in your hand even now?  My prayer is that you will be encouraged as you offer it up to God, watch him breath life into it, and release the inspiration he has placed within you, a communicator of sacred revelation.  Nothing short of genius!

Blessings my friends~
Beth  

Once upon a time, I was more than broken; I was destroyed, shattered-I believed- beyond repair.  When I went to church, which was rare, I couldn't hold my head up.  If you'd have asked me what God called me, my answer wouldn't have been "His Beloved".  I would have said He calls me "His biggest disappointment."   - Claudia Mair Burney

Do these words feel all too familiar to you?  Have you felt yourself in a pit of despair that you can't seem to climb your way out of? Have you been so blinded by the pain of wounds inflicted from another that you cease caring what does or does not happen to you?   If you relate to this in any way, I have some very good news for you.  There is One who sees you right where you are at.  There is One who loves you desperately and when He looks at you, instead of seeing the flaws, mistakes and deep mortal wounds within your soul; He sees you as you can be, as you were meant to be. 
Whole
Complete
Healed
Restored (returned, brought back, retrieved, recovered, cured and renewed)

I would like to share this scripture from the Bible with you if I may:
"Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table.  When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears .  Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.  When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is-that she is a sinner".  ..."Then Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."  Luke 7:36-39 & 48

You see, Jesus is the only One who can lift you out of any pit or situation you may find yourself in.  With Him ALL things are possible and there is never a situation that is hopeless if you turn to Him and trust Him.  He loves you far beyond what you could possibly imagine.  He is not an angry God who wants to punish you.  God is the only perfect and loving Father whose heart is for you, not against you.  You can believe...you can trust Him.  I can say this not just because I read it in the Bible, but I can tell you this because I have personally experienced His love, forgiveness and mercy in my own life and for this reason I love and trust Him with all my heart.  He longs to be your "Faithful and True" God.

"But You are a shield around me, O Lord; You bestow glory on me and lit up my head." - Psalm 3:3

Maybe today you do know Jesus as your Savior but have felt more like you have been crawling around in the dust of life's hurt than like a princess whose Prince has come for her.  Or maybe you do not know this Jesus and have never given Him the chance to show you how much He loves you.  You must know,  He is the "Lifter of your head".  He sees you and knows you by name wherever you are at.  He is as close as your next breath crying out to Him.  He has a crown waiting just for you...

*I invite you to check out my gallery and look at the painting I painted that goes with this message to you, "Lifter of my Head"
Blessings to you precious one.

The Unforbidden fruit...
Did you have to read that over a few times before this thought crept in... "Unforbidden...wait, is that a word?"
Were you almost convinced for a second that it actually was a word?  Try it out again, "unforbidden".  It's the opposite of forbidden right? 
Okay - I admit, it's not really a word, although I think it should be.  Let's look at them together.
FORBIDDEN  -  UNFORBIDDEN
One says you can't and the other says you can right?  Still not convinced?  Alright, I give in then.

So what is the opposite of "forbidden"?  Here are a few choices and I will let you choose the one you like best.
Acceptable, allowed, approved, authorized, permitted and lawful. 
The point I want to make is this: So often we hear and think about the "forbidden fruit" in the garden of Eden which Eve and then Adam ate, but how often do we think about the fruit God did  allow them to eat?  ("Allowed", that's the word I chose, which one did you like?)

Visit these verses with me really quick if you will.
"The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the man (Adam) whom He had formed and from the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that was pleasing to the sight and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and bad.  And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, 'Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat, but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it, for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die."  Genesis 2:8-9; 16-17 (JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Parenthesis mine)

How often do we focus on the things which are forbidden instead of what is allowed and approved by God?  You see this was a strategy of satan, the evil one, from the very beginning and still is to this very day.  If he can get us to focus on all the things which are forbidden, then he can keep our focus off of the wonderful things that are allowed.  Pretty crafty is it not?  Well, after all, it does say in Genesis 3:1,
 "Now the serpent (also known as satan) was the shrewdest of all the wild beasts that the LORD God had made." (JPS. Parenth. mine.)

In the next few posts we are going to focus on what the LORD God did allow.  May it never escape our attention again!
So let's break it down.  "Every tree that was pleasing to the sight."  Pleasing to the sight.  The enemy of your soul wants to tempt you with the bad or evil things to look at so that your eyes are not able to see the pleasing and beautiful things that God wants to show you.  It's the "look over here" so you will not "see over there" trick if that makes sense.  Not unlike the slight of hand that so many magicians use to distract you from what they do not want you looking at.  Can we be real here?  Satan, that serpent of old says in essence, "Look at the filth, pornographic, demonic and violent (need I go on?) so you will not see the realm of the beautiful, holy and righteous.  When we look upon these things, they have the ability to sear our minds.  They are not harmless and they have a purpose. 

There is a reason Jesus said, "The eye is the lamp of the body.  If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.  If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!"  Matthew 6:22-23 NIV

 God does not want to take everything away from you. He longs to give us all of Himself, cleansing us from anything that stands in the way of Him doing that.  If that is your hearts cry today, pray the following in your heart to Him:

"Jesus, please forgive me for the things I have put before my eyes that have not been pleasing to You.  Will You cleanse my eyes and mind from any evil and wash them with the salve that Your precious blood on the cross provided for me to be clean and forgiven?  Remove all darkness from within me and let Your light permeate every part of my body, mind and spirit.  I break any agreements I have made with the enemy knowingly or unknowingly.  I make a covenant with You now to protect my eyes from gazing upon the unholy and profane, that which is not pleasing in Your sight.  Would You now open my spiritual eyes to all things from You?  I want to see Your glory God and anything you want to show me.  Thank You that You hear me and I know you will anwer me.  I ask all of this in the mighty Name of Jesus."

If you prayed this prayer in faith and seek the Lord with all your heart, you will be astounded at the things He begins showing you.  How He longs to show you the "trees" that are pleasing to the sight just as God said in Genesis 2:9.  

In my next post we will be looking at the next part of this verse where it says, "..and good for food."  Until we meet again, may the Lord bless you and keep you and fill your eyes with His wonder.

Blessings~Beth

 

If we never witness the darkness, can we really understand the light?  If you have not experienced bitter cold, can you truly appreciate the warmth of a fire? (Have you ever wanted a warm fire on a hot day?)  I wonder...if you've yet to experience the depths of despair, is it possible to grasp the heights of pure joy?

This life we live is one of extreme opposites.  Coincidence?  I don't believe so.  Will we ever really understand one extreme without experiencing it's exact opposite?

Extreme opposites:
Overwhelming chaos;  peaceful order.
Sheer exhaustion;  quiet rest.
Crashing waves;  water, still as glass.
How can we fully experience one without the other?  We must have a point of reference, one to compare the other.

A dry parched desert;  Rivers of Living Water.

How desolate, lonely and dangerous the desert can be.  The ground so void of water that it cracks under the intense heat of the sun.  The only thing a gentle breeze stirs up in this place is dust.  Venemous and deadly snakes inhabit the sands with wild animals crossing their paths.  If you don't die of thirst then one of the these may surely kill you.  The desert shows no mercy and is no respector of persons.  Whether prince or pauper, if not rescued, both will die by the unmerciful hand of one of the above mentioned perils.  As you walk through it's endless desolation, no water in sight, your body is depleted of life giving water.  Generally, our bodies which are made up of approximately 75% water, can only survive three to five days without water.  Dehydration sets in with symptoms of headache, diziness, lethargy and eventually death.  How imperative this water that brings us life.

Deadly dehydration;  life giving water.
Extreme opposites. 

Isn't the dryness of the parched throat the very cause of the thirst?  How can you desperately crave the life giving water without first feeling thirsty?

"On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, 'If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him".  John 7:37-38

Let's take the physical and parallel it to the spiritual just as Jesus always does so perfectly.  When we experience times of spritual or emotional dryness where we may feel like God is far away or even silent, we often liken it to "being in the desert".  Coincidence?  I don't think so.  Here are those terrible yet beautiful extreme opposites once again.  I don't know if you're like me, but that is when I find myself crying out, "It is so dry in this desert, can I get a drink please?!"  What will quench our spiritual thirst in the "desert" we so often find ourselves in?  Only the Living Water, Jesus Himself. 

"Come, all you who are thirsty; come to the waters;"  Isaiah 55:1
"Jesus answered and said to her, 'If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give me a drink', you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.'"  John 4:10

The desert can be a lonely and scary place indeed.  It is here that you may see that slithering "serpent of old" just below the sand at your feet who looks like he is coming to get you.  Fearsome things love the desolation in this place.  Sometimes there are even wild animals.  But guess what?   Sometimes there are also angels!  In Mark 1:12-13 we see a perfect example; 

"Immediately the Spirit drove Him (Jesus) into the wilderness (desert).  And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him."

If you are walking with Jesus, living your life believing and trusting in His sacrifice of death on the cross of crucifixion for you and that He rose from the dead on the third day and now lives and is seated as Lord at the right hand of God, then you are never alone, even though at times it may feel like it.  In Hebrews 13:5b we read, "For He Himself has said, Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you."
 Jesus, fully man, fully God, suffered on our behalf spiritually, physically and emotionally before we were ever even born, far more than we could possibly imagine.  But even through all of this, He gave us the most beautiful metaphor.  Our beautiful Messiah, the Living Water Himself got up and walked right out of that desert having defeated all temptations of satan.  Because He endured before us, we can now endure any desert through His strength He now gives us.  Just imagine, all loneliness, depression, pain, exhaustion, hunger, thirst or anything else you may be experiencing in your own "desert",  endurable. (Is that a word?)

All that said, I share this becuase these are the very things that Jesus spoke to my own heart two nights ago after coming out of one of my own "deserts " recently.  I am a fellow desert dweller.  In my most recent walk through the dry desert I saw the bulge of the serpent slithering under the sands.  Experienced a desperate thirst for the presence of my King as He "seemed " to be silent.  I felt exhaustion from the intensity of the battle and with parched throat cried out, "Can I get a drink in this place please?"  And alas, as He always does so faithfully, my Jesus and Living Water, gave me the most full and refreshing glass of water I could have hoped for. 

As I was awakened in the middle of the night to His Spirit pouring over me, granting me the very thing I asked for, I told Him this; "Thank you!  I missed You so much and the desert was so dry!"  To this I felt His reply, "But if you never felt the dryness of the desert, how could you appreciate the sweetness of the water of My Spirit?"  It all became crystal clear in that moment for me.  Never again would I lament this desert.  If He seems quiet, I will welcome it and trust Him in the midst no matter what, as I wait for Him.  From now on I will embrace these times in the desert because in this place of extremes I learn to love even more it's opposite, the place where the sweet Living Water of my God washes over me.  His very Presence.   Refreshing, renewing and filling me with a wonder that will never cease. 

So, if you are a fellow desert dweller as I am and find yourself parched and exhausted in this dry desert, please remember two things for me...

"There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High God dwells."  Psalm 46:4

"I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys.  I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs."  Isaiah 41:18

May the Lord bless you and keep you.
Beth