I have to admit that some days I am tired and frustrated with people. It seems like life would be easier if I could just live life alone, where no temptation was present. For better or worse other people do affect us and life can be draining. But there is no such thing as a holy hermit, so I must resist the temptation to be selfish and lazy holed up by myself. I have to get out in the world to do the work God has planned for me before I was even born. All of us must get out in the messy mud and muck of life if we are to serve God and grow to climb on His High Places. People are messy, life is messy, that is just how God made it. Messy is ok. As long as I am walking with my Lord, he will cleanse me as needed.

Habakuk 3:19 "God, the Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like hinds' feet, he makes me tread upon my high places."

Romans 12:5 "so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another."

Besides not being able to do God's work if we are hermitted away, it is utter conceit to think that we can walk alone. None of us are perfect. If we were, we wouldn't need Jesus. His sacrifice would be for nothing. No, we need each other. When one falls the other will lift him up. Not "if" but "when". God knows us well and stated that knowledge in his word. Expect trials and failures. We are human in an imperfect world full of sinners. But there is value in the body of Christ. Our Lord blessed us with this gift to help us because he knew we needed it. Don't reject that gift. If you do, you reject God's help for yourself through others he sends to you. You also withold help to others that God may want you to help. It affects everyone.

2 Corinthians 1:4 "God helps us so that we can help others with the same help that we ourselves have received from God."

Proverbs 27:17 "As iron sharpens iron, one man sharpens another."

We can't stand, walk or grow in the Lord without helping each other. God uses others as divine help or divine friction to help us grow more in His image. Give up the conceit of independence and pride. They only keep you from hearing God's truth and leading. Humble yourself and accept His gift. Thank God for the blessing of the body.

Today I am at home with a sick child. Instead of feeling frustrated, I always look at these days as an opportunity to spend more time with my kids. I just figure God is giving me a day to slow down, take care of myself and my kids and spend some precious time with them. It is a blessing in disguise.

I ran across an old devotional book and started looking through it. I have read it several times, but not in many years. It is a classic most people know. If you haven't read it I highly recommend it. "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers. It is awesome and it always pricks my heart when I need to hear from God. Today I read about Philippians 1:20-21

"My eager expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."

This is the basis of being our utmost for His highest, being all we can be, our best for our Lord. To do that we have to surrender all. That is hard and requires courage. I, personally have struggled with this. I want to follow my own will most of the time and rarely ask what His will is. As awful as it sounds, the truth is the truth. I am fearful of what God may ask of me. I would rather make decisions based on my desires, security and logic, and what others expect than on what God tells me to do. That is my first instinct at least. With much prayer and surrender, I remind myself that His will is best no matter what the outcome or cost. What used to hold me back the most was fear of my decisions for God, hurting others around me. Yes, our obedience or sin always has a ripple affect and touches those around us. I finally had to give up the worry and follow God, leaving my loved ones in His hands, trusting He would take care of them too.

God's ways don't always seem to make sense. It forces us into a moment of crisis, whether to exercise our faith or not. Oswald Chambers calls this the "Great Divide". This is the moment that we decide to live for him or for ourselves, whether to trust Him or ourselves and the world. Will we surrender? I think the cost is worth it, no matter what it may be. Our God is worth everything. In the end He is all we really have. And what else could we want? He is our all in all. I am praying daily, moment by moment to trust Him for the plans He has for me and my family. It may sound simple and silly to some, but for me this is big. I hope you have the desire to do the same. I am praying for all of our faith, to grasp hold of all that He has for us so that we can be our utmost for His highest.

This week has been a little trying. Though God has been speaking to my heart about trusting Him for His best and for His provision, circumstances have been testing me. Getting the kids back into the school routine after the 2 week break was fun, especially after finding a baby kitten on our doorstep that we felt obligated to swoop in and save (despite my horrible allergies), searching frantically to find it a home as fast as we could before my head exploded from allergies or the kids were too attatched. Just to add to our drama, I brilliantly decided on a last minute whim to start painting Max's room a color he had picked out a few months ago. Of course this was before the kitten was found. As usual, the painting task was much bigger than I had anticipated and his room is a mess with half painted walls and his toys and furniture pushed together in a mass in his room and other parts disseminated throughout the house. It is a mess. The saga continued as the dryer decided it had, had its last day so I had tons of laundry piling up and no underclothes left to wear to work. Then Monday, during my driving around to therapy appointments around the county, my tire went flat--to the ground--. I had to air it up just to get to a tire store. I sat and cancelled a few client appointments and then was told that I needed to get 3 new tires actually, an alignment job and new front brakes. Yes this happens to be the same old car that I just had a new transmission put in last summer. UGH! For the cherry on top, both of our car insurance bills showed up in the mail this week to pay.

Needless to say, the enemy was firing a lot of arrows and my faith was faltering. Where is the provision Lord! Well, I found the provision in His word and in prayer. Yes He does humble me often. These are the sweet verses God gave me this week that helped:

(Habakkuk 2:3) "The vision is for the appointed time. Though it tarry, wait earnestly for it, for it will surely come."

(Hebrews 11:6) "No one can please God without faith, for whoever comes to God must have faith that God exists and that He rewards those who seek Him."

Yes I pulled more money out of savings and we got a new dryer and I got my car fixed. The cat was taken to an adoption site, this weekend we will finish painting Max's bedroom and I can finally really clean the house again. These too shall pass, but the faithfulness of our Lord never passes, His mercies are new every morning. I just hope that the enemy's attacks mean that something really big from God is coming our way. Nothing can thwart the plans of our God. Stand strong. Keep believing His truth and promises in His word.

I have to confess. For the last few (well lets be honest...many years) I have been negligent on my scripture memoriztion. I have a simple system that makes it easy to keep up with them all. I just still have a hard time remembering to do it. Some of you may not think much about it, but this has been a big part of my walk with God since my college days. It is a way that God speaks to me, and without it, I tend to falter in spending my much needed time with Him. This affects everything. God has been compelling me in many little ways (soft, subtle and sweet... as he gently woos me, leading me back to Him) to spend more time with Him in prayer and in His word. I feel that He has something He wants to do and He wants me to trust Him for His best. I have struggled with trusting Him ever since Jason was sick for so long and our finances plummeted and debt grew. It was such a dark time with so many different trials hitting us at the same time and it went on and on with no end in sight. My faith waned and I became even more of a grumbling Israelite wandering around in the desert. But God was faithful and we survived. Unfortunately my spiritual disciplines didn't survive.

I have started back on my daily scripture memorization system. If anyone wants to do it, here is any easy way to start. Don't be intimidated. Start with simple verses that mean a lot to you. Write several on 3x5 index cards. Just do one to start with. Memorize it for a week or two then add another. Have some ready to add, that you like. Get a box (a recipe box works well). Use index divider cards and label on of them "Daily". Label others the names of the days of the week so that you have Sunday through Saturday. Then label the rest 1-31 for the days of the month. Now you have daily, weekly and monthly ones to choose for the day. Eventually when you have a lot to keep up with you can just pull a few from each (e.g. today I pulled from the sections: Daily, Thursday, and 1.). Once you have a verse memorized fairly well, move it from Daily section to Weekly (one of the days of the week so that balanced out and not too many for some days). Once that verse becomes so easy to remember and well known to you that you can go a month before needing a review, move it to a day of the month. It is a constant process that keeps it easy. That way you don't have to review every one every day, only as needed.

To make it even easier, I got a key ring, punched a hole in all of the verse cards and made dividers for my key ring of Daily, Weekly and Monthly. Then as I pull the verses for the day, I put them in the section of the key ring so that I can take it with me anywhere. I can glance down as needed and repeat the verse many times before flipping to the next one. This keeps God's word with you always at hand, especially when it is written in your heart! It makes His word so much more personal and impactful. I have learned that He can draw a verse to mind when I need it and use it at different times in so many different ways to make it come to life. It is a huge comfort for me and helps my anxiety. I tend to worry a lot. Anyway, I hope this helps some of you. It has been a huge blessing to me. Psalm 119:11 "Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee."

After all of that explanation, here is the verse I wanted to share with you today. It really touched my heart. Zephaniah 3:17 "The Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy." Wow. What a blessing. What a good God we have. To think that he rejoices over us, that we can bring a smile to his beautiful face, that he loves us so much. It made me think of a father, taking the time in his busy day to stop and enjoy watching his child. In all of Gods busy, important, eternal business/work, he still takes time to stop and enjoy us. He smiles and shouts with joy over us. Whether we deserve it or not, and none of us do, we have a great God. Thank God for that! So rejoice in Him, for he certainly rejoices in us.