Amazin' ain't it?

I've been in a few church meetings lately and I'm struck by and even amused by what passes for "prophecy" these days...then again it makes me kinda sad that God's people need SO much encouragement to believe Him for even the simplest things. With that thought...here are some really good prophecies for 2008 sent to me via email.

THE TOP TEN PREDICTIONS FOR 2008
1. The Bible will still have all the answers.
2. Prayer will still work.
3. The Holy Spirit will still move.
4. God will still inhabit the praises of His people.
5. There will still be God-anointed preaching.
6. There will still be singing of praise to God.
7. God will still pour out blessings upon His people.
8. There will still be room at the Cross.
9. Jesus will still love you.
10. Jesus will still save the lost.


and the email I received with these predictions included this pearl of wisdom...perhaps the deepest thing said...
"God whispers in your soul and speaks to your mind. Sometimes when you don't have time to listen, He has to throw a brick at you. It's your choice: Listen to the whisper, or wait for the brick
I hate that brick!!!!" LOL Gotta agree wholeheartedly with that one! :)

PS I realize this post sounds cynical...its not really...

Judges of all things...

I flipped my bible open to Judges this morning...can you believe that? Judges, of all places! Guess that's what you get when you "flip" open scripture...:)

You know what? I read stuff I don't ever remember reading or hearing before...it was all about the time in the early days of the Israelites settling in the promised land....they sort of wondered around and did as they pleased...and some of it was terrible..they made war and killed unsuspecting villiagers and kidnapped women and consulted priests on the mind of the Lord...one guy actually hired a priest, made an ephod and a teraphim and then made a couple of graven images too, just to cover all his bases, then some members of another tribe came along and stole them...all of them including the priest...?? What was up with that? and somehow God still actually directed them and blessed them...even in their misguidedness...because they were the children of Israel....yet repeatedly its says two things in the passages of scripture that I was reading..it says..."In those days there was no king in Israel"...and it also says "every man did that which was right in his own eyes". Of course I've heard numerous sermons on this subject however this time I was very struck by those two things.

To me it is obvious that the one is very dependent on the other...it seems to me that because there was no king in Israel, every man did that which was right in his own eyes....they tried pretty hard actually to do whatever it was they thought they were supposed to do...and God actually blessed them and their efforts...but it was a very sad effort indeed...almost humorous if you could overlook the death and destruction that followed everywhere. It was strongly implied that things would be different with a king in charge.

The arrival of The King certainly changes everything... even though we may dwell in the place He has led us and are trying really hard, crying out to Him for help and advice...(He may even have bailed us out a few times...He is very merciful that way, you know...)

Still, having The King reigning supreme is the thing that is truly necessary. Having Him in charge relieves us of the necessity of doing what is right in our own eyes.....His eyes replace ours...it frees us to simply live under His banner. How incredible is that!?!

I'm so thankful I don't have to figure it all out myself...that is His job!

Boy did I get an eyefull flipping open to Judges like that!

Regrets

I'm having a few regrets here...ever have any of those?
My Princess is making some things very clear to me...I see it now...The way I spent more time ordering her mommy around than playing Barbies with her...the way I loved to read..to myself that is...but treated reading to her like a chore...and hence she regarded reading as a chore...still does...the way I shushed and shooed her and her siblings away and rarely ever had time for romps in the yard or fort building under the dining room table...but always had time for correcting and chastising and making sure the teeth were brushed and the toys put away...growing up with me as a mom certainly had its drawbacks...and I see them all now so clearly...routine and order and staying within the lines...God help me...I see it all ...a harsh and rigid picture.
If we only knew then what we know now..right?
I know, I know, I shouldn't be so hard on myself...I had 3 kids, I had to keep house and make dinners and lunches and do laundry, monitor homework and drive to baseball and ballet....it all seems like a dream now...was I really just getting by to get by...marking time til "one day" ? Keeping order for God knows what? It surely looks that way...
I am impressed with how sad that really is...how wasted so much of it is and how you never really "get" things til its too late...(why is that?)
I think it has something to do with original sin. Not that I wasn't a believer...I was...and trying so very hard...but this is a perfect illustration of how Adam's screw up has affected me..he screwed up..and infected his kids..then they screwed up and infected theirs and so on all the way to me...so I followed suite and screwed up my kids..no matter how hard I tried I had no chance of doing it right...
But thank the Lord, that's not me now...not that I'm completely liberated from the effects of sin...not quite yet...:) but I have come to understand that today is all we really have...everything changes and life slips away very quickly...as King Solomon said life truly is "just a vapor" and one day "poof" its gone. Thank God mine isn't gone just yet...I still can redeem the time...My Princess is teaching me some valuable lessons and maybe things will be different this time...for her and her cousins to come, at least as far as I'm concerned...that really is why they call it grand, you know...its like a second chance... a chance to right some of the wrongs you were too young and stupid to know were wrongs the first time around...a chance to move a little more slowly and savor the moments that life is made up of....maybe I still have time...time to smell a few flowers, read a few books...build a few forts...

The Princess....

The Princess...