Though it may seem that RW’s has lost its mojo,  I assure you that it has not!   We love this project and are committed to it but we’re all just balancing a variety of commitments, relationships, and additional priorities and sometimes life gets in the way.  Appropriately, this weeks topic, “Write about what life has taught you recently”, gives us a view into the diversions that have kept us away from here.  Gil wrote a fantastic post yesterday and I would encourage you to check it out, HERE.

The last few weeks and months have been a whirlwind for me, personally.  Though I’ve slowed it down, rested and recovered, just as I set out to after the first of the year, God has been rocking and rolling all over my life.  It’s as if I hopped up on some big surfboard and have just been riding the wave ever since.  There’s certainly been a few spills, but I can assure you it’s been a ride. I’m sorry that I can’t delve into the details at this point, but the time isn’t quite right, but I’m excited to share a little bit today about what I’ve been learning.  I hope God speaks through it, even without great analogies and stories to make the point.

So, here’s the cliffs notes:

We are at war.  Where there is good, there is bad.  Where there is light, there is also dark.  We have an enemy in this world who hates us, and wants our hearts and our souls for his very own.  As we draw near to God, we fire him up, and all sorts of craziness starts to take place.  And while we have a sword and shield like no other, we have to fight!  We have to tell the asshole to back off, that he has no right to us, and that we want no part of him.  Doing so, consistently, sends him packing.  And despite how fast and furious the attacks are coming, it’s important to never, ever give up.  He will retreat and God is always there by our sides and Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is all the proof that we need to know that God always wins and that love always wins.

Let go, and let God.  I’ve written on this topic before, but never in my life have I seen so clearly what He will do, when we truly surrender.  The bible tells us that God wants to bless us.  He wants to give us what we want, but we are so fond of holding onto to all control devices, that He can’t.   As I’ve been fighting on the front lines of a spiritual attack for the past year, I reached a point after the first of this year, where letting go, was seemingly the easiest way to shore up some energy.  I was too tired from fighting the devil to continue fighting the Lord, too, and somehow, unknowingly at the time, I just said, “Fine, Lord.  Do it your way.” There have two major areas in which my normal efforts would have certainly failed and God has shown up BIG TIME in both, creating welcomed results that I alone could have never manufactured.

Seasons.  Life truly does take us through a period of seasons.  There are times of blessings, times of want, times of trial, times of peace.  He does this to keep us on our toes, to keep us from becoming to self-sufficient, as self-sufficiency keeps us from turning our eyes towards the One who made us.   We should never lose heart in a season of trial, because as we remain committed to listening and doing what He asks, seasons of blessing appear out of thin air.

The power of a praying woman.  I’ve seen books along the lines of that title for years.  My church as this Daughters of the King  ministry, which is essentially a bunch of old ladies who take the churches prayer list each week and commit themselves to going toe to toe with God on them on a daily basis.  Admittedly, I’ve always chalked that one up to, “it’s nice that the church gives those old ladies some meaning in their lives” and have thought little more about it.  But man.  Holy cow.  I had no idea what power there was in prayer until God convicted me to pray for a certain someone who I truly had no interest or desire to support in any way.  I did what he told me though, starting with popcorn prayers whenever I thought of this person, to committing to praying on the subject when walking the poodle, to eventually even fasting for this lost friend.  It was as if, that little bit of obedience set off 30 mile domino track.  What God has done from the time that started, to now, I suspect will ultimately become one of my life’s greatest journeys.  Once I get to the 30,000 foot view, I suspect there will be more specifics written on the subject, but for the time being, go pray.  Trust me.  Male or female.  I say with absolute certainty that there is a direct correlation between prayerful obedience and answered prayers.

 Never lose faith.  No one said life would ever be easy.  And faith doesn’t make life easy. It makes all things possible.  I don’t care what you’re going through. Little trials, increase our faith for the big trials.  Life is a journey, not a destination. Jesus is a journey, not a destination. We’re going to have to continue slogging along, fighting the battle against Satan, struggling with letting go, enduring seasons of ups and downs, all the while praying unceasingly if want to defeat the bastard.  The good news is that once you grasp that, it becomes a joy.  You see life for what it is, recognizing what is being thrown at you and who it is being thrown at you from.  If it’s from satan, reject it.  If it’s from God, embrace it.  It’s not about you.  It’s about God.

Recap: So shut up, pick up your sword, fight the devil with all you’ve got, let God do what He’s going to do, embrace whatever is happening in your life as a learning experience, and pray unceasingly KNOWING that faith isn’t the believe that God can, but that He WILL.

This is the second post in a three-part series.  If you missed part one, catch up here.

For me, it started with music and reading some books.  Opening my heart to the possibilities of what God might want to do with my life.  It was a scary time and a painful time.  Everything I’d held dear and close to my heart was beginning to fall from my grasp and I felt a lot of fear in many areas of my life.  God was assuring me, that he had better in store for me, but it was a line that I’ll admit, was difficult for me to buy.

That’s what was happening for me in that first year after my ex-husband left home, which ultimately led to me leaving all together.  Yes, I’d been a Christian all my life.  A leader in my church youth group, active in Young Life, but I still didn’t fully get it. I knew it was about a personal relationship, and mine was deepening, but I still thought that following Jesus meant that I would end up in a mud hut in Africa, broke and single for the rest of my life.  The reality, I was learning, was that insisting on doing life on my own terms for many years had left me in no better position.

And so it began.  I don’t really recall having a “Come to Jesus” meeting or a great conversion experience, but I clearly remember hearing that sweet little voice in my head, while down on my knees, saying “start looking for an apartment”.  I had saved up a little money to rent a place, but I was still terrified and disbelieving of my ability to fund life on my own, but I obeyed and began searching the internet. Craigslist led me directly to the condo that I still live in today, just a few short days later.  It was simply a matter of listening to that little voice in my head and following its’ orders.  I still didn’t want to be out on my own, but I knew that God had a better plan for me and once I gave in God provided me an absolutely perfect home that I have loved living in.

I began journaling during that first year.  As I read back through those early writings, I could see how God was answering prayers and also how He was having His way with me.  I became more comfortable with the notion of being “used” by God and could suddenly begin to look at my life through a much broader lens than what I had previously seen.  I went from my normal 1,000 foot view to a 30,000 foot view where I began to see how my actions affected those around me.  Both good and bad.

As I learned to obey on small things, it became much easier to obey on big things.  I began tithing and began watching how God blessed those tithes and provided opportunities I never would have dreamed possible.   As I write this, I have just taken two huge trips to Europe and to Argentina and am going to Nepal in the fall!  That would have never have been possible in my former life!  There were times in church where I would give my biweekly $100 check when I would hear that little voice in my head say, “write it for $150″, and sometimes even $200.  That wasn’t an every time kind of thing but I learned to listen to that small sweet voice and in doing so, learned to rely on Him to provide for me financially.  And He did, and He has.  I haven’t gone without one single thing.

The bible tells us that all good things come from the Lord.  Well, I don’t know about you, but I think my paycheck is a pretty good thing.  Therefore, it’s really His money I’m spending each day.  It’s His provision that pays my bills and once I began to grasp that, giving money away became a joy.  Now, you may not agree with on this, and I’m sure most fundamental Christians wouldn’t, but I believe that my tithe money can be applied to anything or anyone that benefits something or someone other than myself.  With that philosophy in mind, I began to seek out more fun ways to give money away. I gave money to friends in need, paid for a plane ticket for a co-worker, made donations to kick starter campaigns and paid for sponsorships for fundraisers in the name of friends businesses.  Each time, asking God to show me where to send the money.

I’ll never forget sitting in my office one day, thinking/praying about what to do with my tithe, and hearing God say, “empty your wallet, put in an envelope and send it to Jordana“.   My dear friend, a missionary in Sweden, opened a plain old white envelope a week or two later with $96 in it.  A couple of weeks before Christmas, this money was a solid reminder for her, that God always provides!  Pretty cool.

Now, I should clarify that by no means has a commitment to tithing made me financially secure for the rest of my life.  There have been times when I’ve lived week to week, but each time God assures that He has all the money in the world and that He will provide.  There have been times when I have written those checks when I honestly wasn’t quite sure if I’d be able to pay the power bill, but looking back, I can say that I have never, not one time, gone without.  I’ve never missed a payment or been unable to pay for an unexpected expense.  I’ve paid for trips out of my own pocket that I never would have even dreamed of taking and had my fair share of fun and good times.  While writing the check often feels like a sacrifice, I gain more and more each time I give of what has so freely been given to me.

I wrote this post a while back, and it’s just been sitting in my draft pile, with a slew of other posts, but this morning as I opened my computer and asked what God wanted me to share, He kept saying, “Getting to God”, which is what this post was originally titled as (however, it must be a popular thought in my head as there is already a previous post by the same name here on this very site), so here we are.

There are actually two, maybe 3, additional pieces to this post that I’ll tidy up later in the week and post as well, so check back for that.

I recently wrote a post for Random Writers about how fear of self-dependency confined me to a rather co-dependent lifestyle for most of my early adulthood.  It wasn’t until I completely reached bottom, that sort of inadvertently let go of the reigns and finally began to let God call the shots.  It got me thinking about how the paradigm shift really went down and what it looked like.  I’ve decided to delve into the matter deeper by writing a series of posts on how I finally learned to let go.

I know that for many people, “letting go and letting God” is an extraordinarily difficult concept to fully grasp.  It sounds good on paper, but for those who embrace practicality, life just doesn’t work that way.  Loosing control and a firm grasp on what is going on around you, simply doesn’t work.  Maybe there have been instances where we have actually done it, but for many of us fully putting our lives in God’s steady hands has a mystical quality to it that we can’t fully wrap our brains around.

We want to do it, we know it’s the right thing to do, that ultimately His will would be far greater than anything we could ever produce for ourselves, yet we can’t get there with Him.  Fists clinched, to our own feeble 1,00o foot view of our lives, we are unable to loosen our grip to the reality of the more objective 30,000 foot view.  During my “I’m not able” years, I even convinced myself that I wasn’t able to let go.  I wasn’t the stereotypical “Christian” type, so why bother?  I’d end up disappointing God, myself and everyone around me in the process, so why try?  It was just too hard.

But when I reached that rock bottom place, about a year after my marriage began to unravel, when the paradigm shift began for me, I can honestly say that I really had no clue what I was doing.  All that I knew was that I had spent years trying to do life my way and clearly hadn’t gotten very far on my own.  I was tired, broken and beaten and simply didn’t have anywhere else to turn.  There had to be a better way.

During the year before, when my marriage was falling apart, I knew my faith was already beginning to deepen.  I began reading books like “The Shack” by William Young and “Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller (the movie comes out April 13th!!!).  I watched Joyce Meyer as much as possible to try to open my heart to “religious speak” and really began trying to let some of it sink in.  This is when God gave me Needtobreathe, which opened my soul up to contemporary “Christian” music.  I prayed fervently for the restoration of our marriage, and after reading John Eldridge’s “Walking With God”, my ability to communicate with God improved and I learned to listen to Him during.  The foundation was set in that first year, but I still wasn’t “sold out” for Christ.

We had differing opinions, me and God, God and me,  that became blatantly obvious during that first year.  But as the reality of how desperately I needed Him began sinking in, I began praying that He would align my heart with His will.  Sometimes that was all I could muster in prayer, “Change my heart, Father.” Over time, I realized that my approach to different circumstances was changing.  I was able to pray for peace in difficult situations, and receive it.  I began looking for God in my every day life, and seeing His blessings in even the smallest ways, which gave me faith in the bigger areas where I really needed him to show up.

I think it’s easy to forget that it’s a process.  It is a relationship, just like friendships, that require time, energy and effort. You don’t meet someone on the side of the road and poof, 30 seconds later, they become your best and most trusted confidant.  It doesn’t work that way.  Relationships take time and energy to develop.  You’ve got to hang out and get to know one another, eventually finding that place where you trust that other person to honor your hopes and dreams, failures and disappointments.  Relationships are built on foundations of trust and sometimes it takes lots of small instances where trust is earned to be able to reach a point in the relationship where it becomes more intimate.

If you’re not making a concerted effort to spend time with God, you’re not going to get to Him.  Your relationship with Him isn’t going to develop in a deeper and more meaningful way. Whether it’s reading Godly material, attending church, praying, observing quiet time or spending time in fellowship with other Christians, if you’re not doing it, that relationship isn’t going to develop.  We have to be fed with spiritual food, just like our bodies have to be fed with food that sustains us.  And that food must be healthy and nutritious in the same way as the foods we feed our body.  Finding a well-balanced diet of church, quiet time and fellowship is essential for us to deepen our faith.

Later in the week, I’ll share a bit more about what that “faith diet” looked like for me, but in the mean time, I’d love to know how you get fed and what your diet looks like?

Random Writers: Write about how/where you find your inspiration.

Many creative types have a muse.  The person or thing that  releases or uncovers matters of the heart,  mind and soul in imaginative ways. Shakespeare had the Dark Lady, Dali had his wife Gala, John Lennon had Yoko, and Adam Levine had Jane.  In these cases, women, who inspired works of art, literature and song. Women do make the world go round, you know. I suppose I should embrace that.

While I’ve had the good fortune of being surrounded by amazing women in my life, and by being inspired by many of them, I am heterosexual, and thus not familiar in my own life with having a female muse but after a week like I’ve just experienced, I didn’t have to look too far to find where my inspiration comes from.

This last week has been one series of divine appointment after another.  God has been moving in HUGE ways, answering prayer right and left.  In the midst of a big week with a having major fundraiser on Saturday, God left my calendar, virtually wide open, allowing me the time I needed to invest myself in the situation at hand and to be ready whenever He called.  I have had the honor and privilege of being USED, and it’s exciting.

(It’s not really my story to share so forgive me for not going into details, though I’d love to.  If we’re lucky, maybe it will show up on these walls sometime in the future, written by the one with the story to tell.)

It makes me want to dig deeper, to know my maker better, to pray harder, to soften and heal my own heart, and to choose to do it ALL His way.  No more of this, I’ll do this part my way but you can be in control of this area of my life.   My efforts only covered up deeper issues, and this time around, I’m choosing to let go and let God resolve them, and to be in control of it all.

I read somewhere this week that there is a direct correlation between obedience and having your prayers answered.   I have had lots of prayers but admittedly a past short on obedience to Him.  After a little personal struggle with obedience last Sunday, and ultimately saying “ok, I’ll do it”, I saw the correlation first hand as I sat back and watched God do His thing as only He can do, answering prayers, speaking clearly and audibly, and making shit happen.  That kind of response from Him, only inspires me to want to be more faithful, more dutiful and more obedient.

I have NO CLUE what “doing the next thing ” means at this moment,  I’m excited that if I take the time to listen that He’ll show me.   I’m  so excited to watch God work in big fat ways and to be a part of it and I now see that my inspiration comes from the one, and the only one, who would lay down His life for mine.

“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” – John 15:13

Part of my recovery from surgery was catching up on infomercials.  It’s been a while since I caught up on the world of TV shopping.  I spent approximately 5 minutes letting this fellow tell me how crappy my pillows are and how his will revolutionize my sleep life.

5 minutes I’ll never get back.

What caught my attention as the ad for the greatest pillow ever invented started was that I had just recently heard someone say that “ a clear conscience is the best pillow“.  Having been doing a fair amount of sleeping the last few days, I took a few minutes to think about the ways in which my conscience keeps me from falling fast asleep.

* I never wrote that Thank You note

* I never bought that wedding present

* I really should have made myself more available for my friend in need

* I didn’t DO what I said I was GOING to

* I know God is telling me to do X, and I will one day, but not yet.

Why in the world, don’t I just do what I need to do?  At a minimum for at least the sake of getting a good night’s sleep?

Isn’t the answer here easy?

JUST DO IT!!!!!!!!!

Can I get a “Amen”?