I have recently learned how (to at least) establish or acknowledge guidelines in learning how to truly enjoy pleasures in this life. I think this is vital, for we can so easily take what God has so freely given us and abuse it to the point that we unwittingly abuse others around us. We can also become an "Eeyore" Christian and others see us as people who do not know the meaning of fun! We are going to travel down the road in learning boundaries and what to look for as we learn to truly enjoy God given pleasures. We must remember that all pleasures were God's idea first and those pleasures include sex, food, luxuries, friendships, conversations, all things that bring us joy.
Judges 7, Gideon was instructed by God to select his army. God knew that it was too big so He told him to bring his warriors to a river so they could drink. "Keep ones who kneel to drink water from their hands." 300 men were all that Gideon has to go into battle with. These men drank with their heads up keeping their eyes aware of their surroundings. (Really must read the scripture to really be able to see it yourself, Judges 6:33-7:8).
With these verses in mind we come to point #1. "Anything that refreshes you without distracting you from, diminishing, or destroying your final goal is a legitimate pleasure...point within that goal: You first have to draw out what your final goal is. If you never draw out what your purpose is, you will never know what will refresh you along the way. Problem with pleasure today, most of us have not drawn out a final purpose in life. Once you have established that then you know what can distract, diminish, or destroy you along the way," (RZ).
What is your final goal in life. Really it does not have to be that big... What is your goal in the stage you are in right now? If you are a college student, is your goal to finish school, to retain the knowledge you are given? If you are a mother, what is your goal? A father, what is your goal? What is your goal within your business? While you are establishing your goal there is a catch. Your goal needs to be wrapped around one main theme: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’"
In seeing now your goal and what must be the main theme within that goal, now it is time to define sin. “Whatever weakens your reasoning, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes away your relish for spiritual things. In short, if anything increases the authority and power of the flesh over the spirit, then that to you becomes sin, however good it is in itself," (Susanna Wesley) Sin is that thing that comes in and separates you from your goals and from God, the One who wants the best for your life. Stop and really reflect on that, then go on to point number two.
In 2 Samuel 23, David, weary from battle, longs for a simple drink from his well in Bethlehem. His best men sneak behind enemy lines and bring him that drink. He is first elated about a taste of his own water then looks at his men and decides that their lives are worth more and they should have never risked their lives for his refreshment.
Point #2: "Any pleasure that jeopardizes the sacred right of another, is an illicit pleasure for you," (RZ).
I could go into so many examples for this one, but I will let you think of the things that you have done in your own life that were not really a big deal for you, but what about those whom you influence, those who were with you. Think about how that could affect them.
Short and simple, point #3: Proverbs 25:16, “If you find honey, eat just enough— too much of it, and you will vomit.” "Any pleasure , however good, if not kept in balance will distort reality or destroy your appetite," (RZ).
We all must look at these tree main points, keeping the main goal in mind, then we will learn how to truly enjoy this life. There are boundaries that we must keep, for if we do not, we will come to the point of that pleasure and want to vomit. This lesson is more for me than I care to really admit. I have lived this life without boundaries. I have tried this life with rules that were not attached to heart. Really all that matters is the fact that I keep my eyes upon this goal, ("'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’") and learn to walk in a way that leads others in the direction of true pleasure as well.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27, “Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.”
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Enjoying the Ride
Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
I was watching a car pass by my house the other day and noticed the dog in the back seat who was looking right at me. Neither the driver nor the front seat passenger looked in my direction, but the dog looked right at me. The people up front were busy watching the road and looking at where they were going, but the dog was looking at the scenery and looked right at me. This got me thinking. I started thinking of the children who ride in our cars and what they see differently from us. For the view from the back seat is totally different from the front seat. We like the front seat better for the view seems bigger with that wide open front windshield helping your sight, but so often whether we are the driver or the passenger, the ones in the front are focused so much on what is in front of them, the next turn, the bend in the road, whatever it may be that those people miss the fine details. It can be that our children are the ones with the really great seat for they are forced to focus on the ride rather than the final destination.
Roads we have traveled, roads we have gone on where we either insisted on being the driver, opted to be the passenger, or feel were were forced to sit in the back seat, these are all a part of our life and all too often we feel we have taken the wrong road and can never get back to where we were supposed to go. Our travel plans that God once had for us have been changed and the “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future,” those plans now have to be rewritten. We seem to think of God as having this ideal situation for us, but oops she really blew it this time and now He has to rewrite our future He has for us all over again. But something has recently hit me, “Not that I have already obtained all this...I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it..." but I think His plan that He had for me, this ride that I am now on, this life that I now live, I think this was all part of His plan. Don't get me wrong! God did not choose for me to live in sin the way that I did. He did not choose for any of those bad/horrible/outlandish things to happen. They were my choices and I have to live with the consequences of those choices, but I think He always had the map! I think He knew were I was going and where I would pass by. I have to thank God that when my suffering within my sin, when I had had enough, He was there to show me the road. Not a path that had been diverted, but a path waiting for me.
Let me try and paint this picture and explain: When Jason was little he used to come up here to go camping with his family. On his journey, being the passenger in the back seat, his view was different than that of his parents. Children look around and have landmarks that tell them where they are, something familiar to give them a reference point. One of those landmarks that he looked for was an Aspen tree with the initials JS carved in it. For years he would look for that tree and when he would see it he would say to himself, "Almost there!" What he and I both discovered years later was, that tree was my tree. JS was me! My daddy had carved my initials in my tree when I was a very young girl. Jason always looked with great expectation for my tree for that told him that his trip, his final destination was just around the corner. My tree remained in our lives until right before we got married. The road was widened and the tree was torn down. I have to believe that it was because we were finally together and the landmark for that part of our journey was no longer needed.
Now this is not a note on how to land a husband and this is what our whole journey in life needs to be about "finding our soul mate." No, I think God had a much bigger picture! He just allowed me to see that maybe I didn't need to look at all the awful things I had done and think, "Well if I had chosen a different path, maybe this or that would have been different." He allowed me to see that He is in charge and He knew what path I would take and now I am just focused on the right leader to take me there. I am waiting for my Father's nod to tell me where to go. I am allowing Him to hold the map, even if I think I have a better idea. The path has not changed! I am just willing to listen as we travel and my pain is not so severe.
Philippians 3:13, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
It is not really about forgetting our past. It is all about not regretting it so much! I have my memories. My body suffers from the abuse. This does not hold be back, "I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” The prize, the final goal, is a relationship with Christ! This is what it is all about. The closer we become, the more I can hear Him, (Even in those moments where I cannot hear Him, but He wants me to take that next step in faith with me knowing He is close by) the relationship we have together is my greatest desire and the reason I make time for Him... Even if that time is only to tell Him, "Thank You for the sounds of the singing birds." This journey is to have relationships. Our memory is to thank God for the Cross, for I know who I am without Him.
“When we share the point of disturbance we are telling people it is the grace of Christ that is offered to you to rescue you from a life of self destruction.” (RZ)
I was watching a car pass by my house the other day and noticed the dog in the back seat who was looking right at me. Neither the driver nor the front seat passenger looked in my direction, but the dog looked right at me. The people up front were busy watching the road and looking at where they were going, but the dog was looking at the scenery and looked right at me. This got me thinking. I started thinking of the children who ride in our cars and what they see differently from us. For the view from the back seat is totally different from the front seat. We like the front seat better for the view seems bigger with that wide open front windshield helping your sight, but so often whether we are the driver or the passenger, the ones in the front are focused so much on what is in front of them, the next turn, the bend in the road, whatever it may be that those people miss the fine details. It can be that our children are the ones with the really great seat for they are forced to focus on the ride rather than the final destination.
Roads we have traveled, roads we have gone on where we either insisted on being the driver, opted to be the passenger, or feel were were forced to sit in the back seat, these are all a part of our life and all too often we feel we have taken the wrong road and can never get back to where we were supposed to go. Our travel plans that God once had for us have been changed and the “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future,” those plans now have to be rewritten. We seem to think of God as having this ideal situation for us, but oops she really blew it this time and now He has to rewrite our future He has for us all over again. But something has recently hit me, “Not that I have already obtained all this...I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it..." but I think His plan that He had for me, this ride that I am now on, this life that I now live, I think this was all part of His plan. Don't get me wrong! God did not choose for me to live in sin the way that I did. He did not choose for any of those bad/horrible/outlandish things to happen. They were my choices and I have to live with the consequences of those choices, but I think He always had the map! I think He knew were I was going and where I would pass by. I have to thank God that when my suffering within my sin, when I had had enough, He was there to show me the road. Not a path that had been diverted, but a path waiting for me.
Let me try and paint this picture and explain: When Jason was little he used to come up here to go camping with his family. On his journey, being the passenger in the back seat, his view was different than that of his parents. Children look around and have landmarks that tell them where they are, something familiar to give them a reference point. One of those landmarks that he looked for was an Aspen tree with the initials JS carved in it. For years he would look for that tree and when he would see it he would say to himself, "Almost there!" What he and I both discovered years later was, that tree was my tree. JS was me! My daddy had carved my initials in my tree when I was a very young girl. Jason always looked with great expectation for my tree for that told him that his trip, his final destination was just around the corner. My tree remained in our lives until right before we got married. The road was widened and the tree was torn down. I have to believe that it was because we were finally together and the landmark for that part of our journey was no longer needed.
Now this is not a note on how to land a husband and this is what our whole journey in life needs to be about "finding our soul mate." No, I think God had a much bigger picture! He just allowed me to see that maybe I didn't need to look at all the awful things I had done and think, "Well if I had chosen a different path, maybe this or that would have been different." He allowed me to see that He is in charge and He knew what path I would take and now I am just focused on the right leader to take me there. I am waiting for my Father's nod to tell me where to go. I am allowing Him to hold the map, even if I think I have a better idea. The path has not changed! I am just willing to listen as we travel and my pain is not so severe.
Philippians 3:13, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
It is not really about forgetting our past. It is all about not regretting it so much! I have my memories. My body suffers from the abuse. This does not hold be back, "I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” The prize, the final goal, is a relationship with Christ! This is what it is all about. The closer we become, the more I can hear Him, (Even in those moments where I cannot hear Him, but He wants me to take that next step in faith with me knowing He is close by) the relationship we have together is my greatest desire and the reason I make time for Him... Even if that time is only to tell Him, "Thank You for the sounds of the singing birds." This journey is to have relationships. Our memory is to thank God for the Cross, for I know who I am without Him.
“When we share the point of disturbance we are telling people it is the grace of Christ that is offered to you to rescue you from a life of self destruction.” (RZ)
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