IDOK DEVOTION FOR FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2010

Praise Reports, Prayer Requests and Updates:

Have you noticed when you finally notice that your shoulders have swallowed up your neck that to relax them down so your neck and your head can come up out of that hole takes real effort to do what is suppose to be a relaxed position?   In fact it is so much effort that the relaxed position seems to become the tense position and the tense position the relaxed position?  Anybody know what I’m talking about?  In the natural and the spiritual realms?  Many of our Nation’s People have long been in this position of calling tense relaxed and relaxed tense  but that’s not my focus today–at least I don’t think it is. See Isaiah 5:20 for the subject Scripture Text.

So how do we adjust that tense position for the relaxed position?

Pick up my head and suck in my gut!

Which in the spirit equals wrong thoughts out – good thoughts in while saying NO to fleshly appetites.  Anybody getting this with me?  It works every time and it is instant! But it takes practice, practice, practice to maintain in both the body and the spirit.   Moreover in my case I often put off this adjustment until I need weight therapy–a dumbbell in each hand, held to shoulder position, stretching out those taut shoulder muscles, physically speaking, you understand?  Spiritually speaking — the Old Testament and the New Testament (this is where the analogy gets cloudy …  by NO  means would I be calling the Old Testament or the New Testament ‘dumbbells’  …. perhaps humans who don’t pick them up,  dummies… moving on —  The Old and New Testaments in balance )  held to heart level until my will surrenders to His Will.  Okay that’s stretching the analogy I know.  Yeah,  that’s the point.  Stretching and balancing our spirit toward God, relaxes that tensed up, stubborn, unyielding flesh of ours.  For some reason this reminds me of what JESUS says in Matthew 11:28-30.   Come to Me.  Take My Yoke for My Burden is light.  This life is not suppose to be so tense and so heavy that  throwing in the towel feels like a good idea — if that’s our position, we have picked up the wrong weights.  Now who’s the dumbbell when we sit around tensed up with our head down letting our ‘gut’ tell us what to do? Been there, done that and now in ‘training’ to maintain NOT doing it.  How about you?

1 Corinthians 9:27 (Holman Christian Standard Bible) ²⁷ Instead, I discipline my body and bring it under strict control, so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

That sums it up, wouldn’t you say?

To review the list of names for prayer, please click here.

ABBA, this is another good one, I think.  It speaks to me.  I pray I will not close my ears and stop hearing it by tomorrow or even late tonight.  I pray it will minister to our IDOKs and Readers too… if not what’s the point of it?   I pray Holy Spirit You will use it to encourage and lift up; give some humor and some training to each of us.   And I pray now for Marley, hoping that she is recovering nicely and her parents and grandparents are breathing easy by now.   Having read the names and pictured others before You, thank You for what You are doing on behalf of each one.  And EC comes to mind too.  LORD, we love that baby girl and we want her to heal quickly and to have no more pain than is absolutely necessary to protect her as she heals.   Oh my goodness Thank You, DADDY, that just dawned on me; You allow pain to protect us from greater harm.  You are so good to us.  Thank You, DADDY.  Thank You.

And our IDOK Troops, I am again asking You to protect them and keep them safe from bullets and every other harmful object or human and I know You are.  We are asking and You are hearing and answering.  Thank You.  Again, I say You are so good to us.  Thank You.  And as I rest this before posting I pray right now here in this time that our IDOKs and Readers that will be reading this later, even now that You minister to them, that You draw them to Yourself, speaking courage and strength and wisdom into them.  I pray we will do what Joyce has preached that we will do what is right even when doing it feels wrong.  Thank You for all those sisters and brothers who serve Your Word to us and bless us.  Thank You in JESUS name.  Amen and amen.

IDOK DEVOTION FOR THURSDAY, MAY 20, 2010

Praise Reports, Prayer Requests and Updates:

I’m just gonna be straight up with you.  All my life for as much of it as I remember, I have wanted to be beautiful.  Now mind you some days I actually feel a tad cute but only ONCE have I felt really beautiful… but that’s another story and not for today.

And while my case (obsession) is perhaps extreme, I think to varying degrees all women want to be beautiful.   Why else would product peddlers be so successful?!  And it would do us well if we could get our minds around the fact that spiritual beauty far, far, far exceeds physical beauty and we who have some Christian seasoning on us say we believe that, but I’m not sure we really believe it.  I’m not fussing at us … heaven knows if I am I’d be preaching not to the choir but the ‘preacher’.  Hmmm.  Maybe I am ‘preaching to the preacher’.  Okay.  Focus here!

So.  Here’s the text that started this line of writing this morning.  Proverbs 4:9 “She will place on your head a garland of grace; She will present you with a crown of beauty.” The note I placed in the margin of my Bible was this: ‘A garland of grace on my head; what would that act out like, LORD?  It would be a thing of beauty.  What woman does not want to be beautiful?’  And as I type I am reminded this 4th Proverb begins ‘Hear, O sons,’ .  What son of the Most High does not want to be ‘beautiful’ in the eyes of Almighty God?  I can tell you for a fact my beloved is a man of men and he desires to be ‘beautiful’ to our ABBA.   So.  What I am saying is this message crosses gender lines.  (I hope all IDOK devotions do.)

The recipient of Proverbs 4 as it was penned by human hands moved by God’s Voice was to the penman’s son.  Listen to a portion of it as we read:

⁵ Acquire wisdom!  Acquire understanding!
Do not forget nor turn away from the words of my mouth.
⁶ “Do not forsake her, and she will guard you;
Love her, and she will watch over you.
⁷ “The beginning of wisdom is: Acquire wisdom;
And with all your acquiring, get understanding.
⁸ “Prize her, and she will exalt you;
She will honor you if you embrace her.
⁹ “She will place on your head a garland of grace;
She will present you with a crown of beauty.”

This is what I see.   God wants us to pursue Him, pursue His Word, His Wisdom, as a man pursues a woman he wants to win. What does a man do when he is courting a woman?  Even when he is occupied with what is on the ‘stage’ of his desk, she is right there head peaking out from the curtain and he is delighted!  When she emails him, he answers her right away.  When she calls, he takes that call even if he takes no other.   When he’s in pursuit of her,  surprising  her with a little gift for no special reason is normal for him.   See what I mean?  Translate that from the natural to the spiritual, and we get a glimpse of pursing God. And what does such a pursuit do for us?  Look at the woman being pursued (Mind you this only works if the woman being pursued wants to be pursued!) and what do you see?  You see beauty!  You see her extend grace  more easily than before.  You see her act in mercy.  You see light and delight in her countenance. And you see the same in him.  Translate that natural occurrence to the spiritual and what do you see?  A garland of grace and a crown of beauty on their heads — you see minds transformed by the Word of God moving hands, feet and faces to the glory of God the Father!  You see beautiful everyday living — gracing this world.  You see JESUS in us!

Now! to be a doer of this and not just a writer  (and reader) of it!

To review the list of names for prayer, please click here.

ABBA, I write this and I read it again and again and praise You for the privilege of writing it BUT that is not enough!  I am so prone to write it and read and then NOT do it, at least not consistently.   But we are gonna get there, aren’t we?  Thank You LORD.  Thank You.  There may be some IDOKs and Readers out there who feel the same, assure them You will get them there — we just got to keep on keeping on one right decision after another.   Amen and amen!  Make it so!

And as we have read the names and have remembered the request for which their names were given, You have heard and You are active in their lives and I am grateful.  Grateful to be a part of what You have done and will yet do for them.  Grateful that You have kept our IDOK Troops safe and asking You to keep on keeping on keeping them safe and whole in spirit, soul and body and to bring them home one by one safe and sound at the appointed time.  And as we put this in resting mode before posting I ask You to even in this moment tend us LORD; pursue us and birth in us a burning desire to pursue You in JESUS Name and for His sake.  Amen and amen.

I’m a quirky sort from time to time  — some would say the majority of the time.  Be that as it may, this week with my head a bit cloudy with sinus congestion and my body in slow mode I am really quirky. 
Here’s a case in point.  When my Baby Girl greeted me with ‘Top of the morning to you’  this morning, I Googled it to see what others said it meant.

Some say, contrary to what I thought, it’s not an Irish greeting — not unless they are making fun of us Americans.  Whatever!  I like it!  I like it because Baby Girl says it and I like it because it just may help me remember that I need to give the ‘top’, the first part of the morning (day) to Father in one one-on-one conversation so the completion of the saying can be well with me.  I learned the common response to ‘Top of the morning to you‘ is ‘and the rest of the day to you’.

Sooo at this writing,  it’s too late to send a ‘Top of the morning to ya’ greeting, so how about a ‘And the rest of the day to you’!!

So what’s up with this?  Just an extra hello and I’m thinking of you.  Why?  Cause I’m quirky! And because I’m just itching to tell somebody, anybody, about a conversation that I am attributing to FATHER GOD and me this morning while in the bathroom — me, not Father — in the bathroom.  (A little humor … ok, very little!)   Some elements of the conversation I am leaving out for privacy reasons, but it went something like this:

Father, I have told ____ that I want a _____ and so far it has not happened so I am now telling You.  Father, I want a ______.  I paused and then I said and a _______.  I paused and then I said and a ______.   I paused.  And then HE said: ‘Anything else?’
I literally burst out laughing — thought I was gonna fall off the throne!   It was hilarious and beautiful and warm and comforting and led me to say ”Oh LORD I hope that was You because that is just what I want!!  CONVERSATION  with You.  Normal GOD to Friend, Friend to GOD conversation!”

I told you I was quirky … BUT I can’t tell you how much I want it to be TRUE!!   Just quirky holy FUN with the GOD of the Universe — my Father!

Holy hugs, Kat…

P.S. No, before you think I am taking some OTC drugs, and that accounts for this post … I’m not.  I really am this quirky obviously, since I am sharing it with you — loving it!!

See ya’ll in the morning … LORD Willing!  Kathie