His credentials

I (Sherann) know that it has been awhile since my last post.  A lot has been going on and it continues to be a busy month.  However, the Lord has been really stretching me in regards to my relationship with Him.  When Aimee and I decided to be authentic with our faith, there have been numerous times where God was teaching us the same exact truth that week.  It's pretty amazing to encourage one another through our same experiences, even if we are 5 hours apart from each other.  So, this brings me to one of the same learning experiences that Aimee and I both had this week.  Aimee brought some great truths in regards to moving from knowing to knowing.  I found myself to face that same lingering question... "Do you truly trust in Me? or do you merely say that you do?"  Ouch.  For the last couple of days, I've been feeling more anxious than ever.  I start analyzing a lot more and fear starts creeping in.  Then those five letters started to penetrate my heart and mind.  TRUST.  Who do you trust, Sherann?  You see, I've been so caught up in "myself" or how "I" was going to handle the situation that I neglected to trust that Jesus had already gone before me.  It's a matter of choice.  His credentials show me that He is trustworthy. The Cross shows me His unconditional love for me. (1 John 4:9)  My credentials show uncertainty and more often, failure.  If we look at His Word, God never let a single person down.  He kept His promises and did extraordinary things through prophets and leaders.  And these leaders were not special by any means, but they chose to trust in Him because His credentials were legit. 
I choose to trust Him.  Will you?


"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths."  Proverbs 3:5-6 (ESV)

Moving From Knowing to Knowing

Something occurred to me (Aimee) truly for the first time just the other night as I was talking to my mother about what God has been revealing to me lately.  I said to her that God already told me that He’s going to be there for me and take care of me, I just have to keep up my end which is to keep my word and to work on my relationship with Him (not that I can do either of those things on my own, but perhaps that is part of the point).  Should I say that again?

God has already told me that He’s going to be there for me and take care of me… 

God has already told you that He’s going to be there for you and take care of you…

When it hit me I was a little ashamed.  For years I have been claiming that I trust God, and there have been times in my life when I have truly turned to Him with complete trust, but there hasn’t been any consistency to that trust.  God has already told me that He’s going to be there for me and take care of me before I ever made any commitments to Him, before I was even born, He already loved me and was already providing for me.  I thought that I already knew this, but as I prayed with a dear friend the other day, it’s often easier to know something in our heads than it is to truly know it in our hearts.

God has already told me that He’s going to be there for me and take care of me…  He said it when He led Israel through the wilderness and provided for their every need, reminding them constantly that He was their God and that they were His chosen people.  He said it when Israel was sent into exile and He let them know that He was still their God no matter where in the world they were and that they were still His people.  He said it when He sent His Son to seek the least the last and the lost so that we could know Him better, to know that He is our God and that we are His people.  He said it when He sent His Son to die for the sins of the world so that we might be saved and be able to join Him someday in paradise, because He is our God and we are His people.

God has already told me that He’s going to be there for me and take care of me…  This is not a deal that is contingent upon anything on my part except one thing: I simply have to accept His Word, and accept Him.  By letting go and trusting Him, knowing that He is my God and I am one of His people, I have seen His provisions for me not only meet my needs but He has begun to surpass them and move into abundance.

At one of the conferences that I went to, one of the speakers challenged us by saying that we really didn’t have a right to complain that God wasn’t blessing us when He had already blessed us and we did nothing with what He gave us.  Why would He give us more if we haven’t been faithful with what we have already received?  He has blessed me with so much in my life and I have been faithful with some of it and that is unacceptable and shameful.  Through prayer and time in His Word God is growing me and I am being blessed more and more abundantly.  That is not bragging.  I’m praising God!

Casting Crowns, in their self-titled, album have a beautiful song called “Your Love is Extravagant.”  The first two lines say:

                        Your love is extravagant.

                        Your friendship, it is intimate.

We are so blessed to have a God that desires for us to know Him intimately and whose love is more extravagant than we could have ever deserved.

God has already told me that He’s going to be there for me and take care of me…  I think that I will be repeating that to myself for a while.

God has already told me that He’s going to be there for me and take care of me… 

God has already told me that He’s going to be there for me and take care of me… 

Wow.



Let me correct myself:
God has already been there for me and has taken care of me ...

Idolatry as a Favorite Passtime

I’ve found myself thinking about the sin of idol worship lately.  I just finished Exodus and started Leviticus, lot’s in there.  Plus, when I was visiting Sherann I read a little bit of a book she got when she went to see the Purple Pig Tour called, The Purple Pig and Other Miracles (I was scanning to try and find out where the name came from, but I didn’t get that far), and I happened to read a section where Dick Eastman was talking about an experience he had at a college event that touched on idolatry.  When stuff starts popping up over and over again, I don’t take that as a coincidence, but rather as instructions to pay attention.

So I started thinking more about it and praying about it.  Idols aren’t something that we often think about today, or at least that we don’t often think about in a negative way.  In fact, for years people would throw around the phrase “he/she is my idol” quite freely about celebrities all the time.  Today, we even have the ump-teenth season of American Idol, passing off the idea that idolization is no big deal.  It’s still not something that we take very seriously.  But we should.

Idolatry is anything or anyone that draws our attention, time, worship, and praise away from God where it rightfully belongs.  An idol is not simply a carved, man-made god.  It can be a celebrity or sports star or any person.  It can be television, video games, or any stuff.  It can be an idea or ideal even.  It can even be things within the Church, itself, that we have placed too high and too holy for our own good.  If we obsess over it, if we feel like we can’t live without it then it’s very likely something that we have idolized.  I'm convinced that at least part of the reason that God commanded the Israelites not to make any graven images is because then they would have slowly begun to worship those things instead of Him.  We often face that same danger today.

A few years ago we had fires that raged throughout Southern California.  We were about a mile away from one of those fires.  I’ve lived in SoCal all my life, and I’m not saying that earthquakes don’t scare me, but I have never experienced fear quite like that before.  Sadly, what I was really afraid of was not losing my life, but losing my stuff.  In an earthquake, even if the house collapsed, most of my stuff would be fine; it might get dirty, it might take some time to get to, but not destroyed.  But a fire!  A fire consumes everything.  And I was afraid.  And when I realized all of that, I felt sick to my stomach.

I think that it’s okay to like our stuff.  It’s okay to watch television or play video games.  But we need to have a proper attitude about/perspective on things.  If I was going to spend more time worrying about my stuff than worrying about and praying for the people who were losing their homes then my heart was not in the right place and I did not have proper perspective.

We need to recognize what we have begun to idolize in our lives and begin to fix the problem.  It may take time.  There may be relapses.  Prayer helps. 

I’ve been doing this in my life and I’ve been asking God to reveal the things that I have idolized without yet realizing it so that I can remove those things.  This doesn’t mean that I got rid of my TV.  It does mean that I have been watching much much less.  It doesn’t mean that I got rid of my stuff.  It does mean that I have shared my desire with family and friends to begin paring down my unnecessary belongings.  It’s a small step.  But it’s a step.

I want to give God all of the glory.  I want to give Him all my praise.  He deserves nothing less.  It gets easier as I focus more of my time and attention on Him.  I still have bad days.  When I realize it, those are the days that I pray a little more.  He is helping me along the way, because I can't do it without Him.

Celebrating Life

There are lot’s of birthdays happening in my (Aimee's) family right now.  We had one this week, one next week, and one the week after that.

I love birthdays.  No matter how old I get, I will always enjoy celebrating my birthday and those of the people I love.  Every birthday represents another year of blessings to be grateful for.  Grateful for the blessings in their life.  Grateful for the blessing of their life.

Every birthday should be celebrated for great joy and praise to God.  Every new birthday is a gift.  Actually, every day should be celebrated with joy and praise to God.  Every new day is a gift.  None of us know how long we are going to be on the earth.  So we should savor each day.  Enjoy the beauty of God's creation, the love of your family and friends.  God intended for our lives here on earth to have joy; otherwise he wouldn't have created us to have relationships with one another, he wouldn't have made food enjoyable, etc.  He could have made us like the other animals who merely live to survive.  Instead, He created us for more.  Savor that!  Celebrate that!  Praise God for that!

Wag Like a Dog

When I (Aimee) was in high school we got a dog (not our first, but we had been without a dog for several years at this point).  Jacks was a beautiful little mutt with long reddish-brown hair who won the hearts of every person who saw him.  He was a small-to-medium size dog who fit comfortably in your lap and would cuddle with you for as long as you wanted.  He loved to cuddle!  He was a very docile dog.  He didn’t play with toys; he just wanted to be with you whether walking or sitting.  Despite being so docile, he had this habit that when he was really excited his tail would wag so hard that his whole back end would shake back and forth with the momentum of it, and eventually he would lose his footing a little as his back end would wag and his whole body would end up moving back and forth a little.  Now that’s excitement!  That’s joy!

I can’t shake that image lately.  Last week I met with my pastor to listen to a web seminar about evangelism.  The speaker was talking about being excited for Christ and he referred to the image of a dog’s tail wagging and I immediately thought of Jacks.  I have to admit that I became lost in thought for a moment thinking about Jacks and his wagging body, and I found myself thinking that I want to be that excited about Jesus.  I want to be so excited that I can’t contain it and it spills out into my actions and movements so that everyone can see it and everyone will know what it is.

At the conference that I attended last week we were again encouraged to be excited for Christ, recognizing that it is on His power that we rely, not our own, and we can trust that His power will always be sufficient.  That’s exciting!  If we were only relying on our own abilities then we would have every right to be afraid and discouraged; but we’re not.  We’re relying on the One who created the heavens and the earth, the One who has the power to heal the sick, the One in whose name demons tremble!  That is the power that He gives to us, His followers.  That’s exciting!

Be excited for Christ and the power of Christ that is passed to us through the Holy Spirit that we might be empowered to fulfill His mission throughout the world of spreading the Gospel, which is the good news of Jesus Christ!  Amen.

Too Busy Not to Pray

There’s so much going on right now.  Tomorrow and Friday, I (Aimee) will be attending a conference.  Then, I’ll be driving up to stay with Sherann while we attend another conference together that begins on Monday.  I just came home from a meeting with my pastor where we were talking about Advent; yes, folks, Christmas is closer than you think it is.  We started some planning for the sermons and other potential events and discussing whether that was all pointing us in the right direction for where we want to be going in 2011.  Plus, I now have four books that he has asked me to read and I’m still working on the first one that he gave me a few weeks ago.

I’m not complaining.  Honest.  I’m looking forward to the conferences and to seeing Sherann.  I enjoy working at my church and being involved in our worship services.  I’m just saying that things are busy right now and they’re probably only going to get busier as we head towards January.  Just a fact, that’s all.

Ever have seasons like this?  It’s likely that you don’t have the exact same kind of craziness happening in your schedule, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have craziness, too.  It happens to all of us at one time or another and more often for some than for others.

The more full our schedules become the easier it is for us to set aside other things to make more room, things like prayer.  We convince ourselves that taking time to sit down and talk with God is not a responsible use of our time and so we skip it and try to move forward.  However, in actuality, this is just another one of those times where we are trying to play God and it isn’t going to help at all.  In fact, trying to play God generally does more than holding back positive effects, it usually has negative effects. 

The truth is that the busier our schedules get the more that we need God, so the more that we need to spend time in conversation with Him.  We need to pray for God’s guidance in general so that we don’t delude ourselves into thinking that we can do anything good without Him.  We need to pray that God will help us to remember that He is in charge so that we can let go of worries/anxieties that would slow us down and damage our health.  We need to pray that God will guide us safely through our days so that we don’t allow being in a hurry to put us in danger (that’s how I sprained my ankle once, true story).  We need to pray that God will open our hearts in our conversations, so that we don’t forget the importance of relationships and that even the person annoying us is beloved by God.

Prayer puts things in perspective and ensures that we are open to allowing God’s Spirit to move us and guide us in all that we do.

I’m going to go pray now.

Everyday Miracles

I (Aimee) wonder how many people watched the Chilean miners being brought up from about ½ a mile below the surface of the earth after being trapped for 69 days.  I haven’t heard or read any numbers yet.  I must admit that I didn’t watch all of it.  I only saw bits and pieces as I half-watched while getting over the flu this week.  But what I saw was very moving.  All of the men were greeted with cheers, handshakes, and hugs.  There was a large television set-up in the family camp set up nearby where the family members of the miners awaited them.  Photographs show them cheering and crying as their husband, father, or brother was brought to the surface.  When the final miner, Luis Urzua who was the shift supervisor, came to the surface the rescue was almost 24-hours old, but the people cheered with energy like they had just gotten there.  Then, I heard someone say something that really caught my attention: “It’s a miracle.”

Being slightly out of it because of the flu, I’m still not sure exactly who said it—the president of Chile, Urzua, one of the reporters—and I’ve heard it several times since then from many different people.  But then, when Urzua had been rescued, that was the first time that I had heard anyone say it about this situation, and it got me thinking.

In one of my first classes at California Baptist University (the first class I had with Sherann), our professor gave us an unusual homework assignment one day to write a definition for “miracle.”  Have you ever thought about it much?  When most people think of miracles they think of supernatural events: walking on water, raising people from the dead, multiplying the fish and the loaves, etc.  Jesus performed miracles, there is no doubt about that if you believe what the Bible says.  But our problem is that we are often unable or unwilling to notice God’s miraculous work in non-supernatural events.

We look at the survival and successful rescue of the Chilean miners and we are quick to say that this is due to steady heads, calm thinking, science and engineering, careful planning, patience, and so on and so on.  All of that is absolutely true.  Those things were critical to their survival while they were stuck underground and in getting them back to the surface.  So where was God working in all of this?

Well, who do you think brought peace and calm to Urzua so that he could organize the men and the food to keep them alive until they were discovered?

Who do you think inspired the workers on the surface with the correct way to go about the entire operation?

Who do you think gave hope and courage to the men and to their families?

These things all come from God, whether people want to recognize it or not.  Non-believers give the credit to science and human ingenuity.  But we know that God is the one who created us to be able to grasp science and to have human ingenuity.

We need to be looking for God’s not-as-obvious miracles that He works out in our everyday lives, whether big or small, so that we can marvel at His love and grace and wisdom, and so that we can give Him the thanks that He is due.

So, praise God that all of the men who were trapped survived the cave-in.  Praise God that workers on the surface were able to get them food and water to sustain them.  And praise God that they all made it safely to the surface.  Praise God!

Picture taken from MSNBC of Esteban Rojas, the 18th miner to be rescued, just moments after stepping out of the rescue capsule.  Photo by Hugo Infante / Chilean Government via Getty Images.