I’ve been thinking about how deployment is changing my perception of time. I’m starting to realize that God’s using it to give me a whole new perspective, and I think in some ways I’m understanding God a little tiny bit better. Like I have a little more understanding of the idea of him being outside of time itself.

When I have to go a few weeks without seeing friends, I sometimes chuckle on the inside when they explain on our next meeting how much they’ve missed me, while I feel that hardly any time at all has passed. What’s the big deal? Next to having to wait a year to see my other half again, to feel him and look into his eyes… Well, let’s just say it makes all these little gaps of weeks and months feel like nothing.

I can’t really imagine what it is like for God to be outside of time, but if the (global) church is his passion, his love, his other half, so to speak, and he is separated from her for… well, a long, long time… Well, I can imagine that feeling now. She fell away from him, and he won’t be reunited with her until basically the end of this world. Like a year’s separation for me, and how impossible and horrible it seems to a normal married couple, God’s separated from his bride the church for… thousands, if not millions of years. How insignificant must other, shorter increments of time feel to Him? To me it gives new meaning to the verse that says a thousand years is like a day to the Lord.

I’m trying to apply this understanding to my prayer life. See, I’ve been getting frustrated with God for not answering my prayers. Sometimes I pray specifically for the same things for weeks on end, and sometimes I begin to lose hope that he’ll ever hear me and answer. But I have felt like he’s saying to me, “Just because I haven’t answered in a week, you think I’m not listening at all? Trust me! I hear you, and I will answer you. I will meet all your needs. Have patience.”

Sometimes, I’m afraid time won’t ever slow back down. If weeks feel like no time at all, will it still feel like nothing when Hubby is home for two weeks of R&R? Will I have trouble soaking in his presence and enjoying our time together? Will my life speed by too quickly, with this perception of time? I have hope because I’ve known women who have been through deployments with their husbands before who still ached terribly at their husbands’ absence for a week or two of training. So things must eventually return to normal. But hopefully when that happens, I’ll still be able to remember the lesson I learned. Mostly – the patience.

I’ve learned this lesson many times: Heavenly hunger is different from physical hunger. But this is a spiritual lesson, and I feel like those (lessons about God) are kind of unique. Why is it that we only have to learn the same lesson once, or maybe twice if we’re hard-headed… but when it comes to lessons from and about God specifically, about heavenly things, we sometimes learn the lesson a dozen times without it ever sticking? Why is it so easy to forget?

For Example:

• We’ve all learned not to touch fire/stoves. You either took your parents’ word for it, or you had to touch it a couple times to see for yourself how dangerous it is, but after that, you never purposefully do it again. Such is the nature of physical lessons.
• On the other hand, in the Old Testament we see the Jews utterly amazed at God’s power. Yet some time later, they just forget. Again and again God shows them miracles and wonders, and we read it and ask ourselves how anyone could ever doubt after seeing the things those people saw. The parting of the Red Sea? Hello?! Spiritual lessons just don’t seem to stick!

And I do the same thing in my own life. Again and again I learn how much peace and joy increase when I’m walking closely with God, and again and again I forget and let that relationship be neglected.

Hunger

Hungering after God is very different than hungering physically (after food).

I had a low-calorie day on Monday. I do that sometimes to either make up for some high calorie days or to try to trick my body into moving past a plateau in my weight-loss. It was a struggle on Monday, as it usually is, because the less I eat, the more I crave food! When I don’t eat, I get HUNGRY.

Besides physical hunger, there’s another kind. But hungering after God is not the same. It isn’t triggered as much by distance from God. When you haven’t read your Bible recently, you don’t have increasing hunger pangs as the days pass. Actually, you have fewer. Unlike physical hunger, this kind of hunger seems to decrease when you abstain. In fact, you have more hunger pangs when you’re consuming the spiritual things that you hunger after.

When you’re praying every day, you long for more time – more closeness – more of God. The hunger is greatest when you’re indulging, rather than when abstaining.

Don’t Eat Till You’re Hungry

It’s a shame how I sabotage my relationship with God sometimes by saying “I don’t feel like… (fill in the blank).”  Reading my Bible. Praying. Basically, I’m saying, “I’m not hungry right now.” I forget what I’ve learned over and over through the years – which is that often the hunger isn’t there until I start eating.

Don’t eat until you feel hungry may work for your body, but it won’t work for your spirit. So I guess I just want to encourage myself and others to remember. (And believe me, sometimes remembering requires a lot of effort.)

There are so many reasons to keep up your close relationship with your Lord. First and foremost, he loves you, and he longs to have you close. Secondly, when you’re faithful, blessings come. Third, peace and comfort and joy come from that close walk with God.

There are many things that can come between us and the Lord. Distractions, responsibilities… lack of hunger. Don’t let them. Force yourself to remember, and enjoy the benefits of that loving relationship. The hunger will come, but don’t wait for it. Don’t wait to “feel like it.”

Remember that old saying? If you love X, you’ll set him/her/it free. How many times has that proved true for me? How many times does God have to give me the same lesson before I learn?

“The Tao Te Ching says, When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need. Have you ever struggled to find work or love, only to find them after you have given up? This is the paradox of letting go. Let go, in order to achieve.
Letting go is God’s law.”
–Mary Manin Morrissey Read More Letting Go Quotes

Learning Slowly

It’s taking a while for it to sink in, but I think what God’s trying to tell me is that he always has my best interests in mind. I know it, but it’s hard to remember when things don’t feel as if they’re going well. It’s hard to remember when pain and disappointment hit.

So far, he’s shown me that learning to be content with singleness, with waiting for his timing for marriage, led to him bringing me quickly to a point where I could get married. He showed me that learning to trust him to open up job opportunities brought me to a place where I was able to enjoy my job and be financially independent. He’s showing me that letting go of my deep-rooted desires allows him a chance to give me abundant blessings, better than what I could have chosen for myself.

Let Go and Let God…

…have his way.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones. Honor the LORD with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.”
-Proverbs 3:5-10 (NIV)

God calls Christians to let go of their goals, desires, and attachments. Not because goals are bad, and not because our families and friends are unimportant – because he desires our attentions more than those things, and because he can give us better than what we dream for.

"’Teacher,’ he declared, ‘all these [commandments] I have kept since I was a boy.’
Jesus looked at him and loved him. ‘One thing you lack,’ he said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’”
-Mark 10:20-21 (NIV)

“…It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
-Matthew 19:24 (NIV)

“…Jesus…said: ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.’”
-Luke 14:25-26 (NIV)

So, Hubby will work where God puts him, and I will thank God for placing him there. So, I will wait on having children until God’s timing says it’s right, and I’ll thank him for his perfect timing. So, God will grant me the things I need when I need them and give me blessings that exceed my desires… And hopefully I’ll one day learn to give him the trust he deserves. After all, he hasn’t let me down.

“’Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?’”
-Matthew 6:25-27 (NIV)

“Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
-Psalm 37:4 (NIV)

I leave you with this, found on a blog called Redemption’s Heart:

Letting Go

• To “Let Go” does not mean to stop caring, it means I can’t do it for someone else.
• To “Let Go” is not to cut myself off, it’s the realization I can’t control another. To “Let Go” is not to enable, but to allow learning from natural consequences.
• To “Let Go” is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.
• To “Let Go” is not to try to change or blame another, it’s to make the most of myself.
• To “Let Go” is not to care for, but to care about.
• To “Let Go” is not to fix, but to be supportive.
• To “Let Go” is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.
• To “Let Go” is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their own destinies.
• To “Let Go” is not to be protective, it is to permit another to face reality.
• To “Let Go” is not to deny, but to accept.
• To “Let Go” is not to nag, scold or argue, but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
• To “Let Go” is not to adjust everything to my desires but to take each day as it comes, and cherish myself in it.
• To “Let Go” is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.
• To “Let Go” is to fear less and love more. – Unknown.
• Letting Go – is my knowing that I cannot play God and believe in God at the same time.

(Note: My posts usually are not this long! Sorry!)

I wonder how many Christians really trust God. Depending on where I am when I think about this, I end up with different answers. I can be in one setting where I feel most Christians must find this easy, while in other settings it seems there are more people having trouble with it than mastering it. Trust.

It’s a hard concept, even when applied to family and close friends, but when applied to an invisible God, it becomes just that much harder. Even within churches, the amount of trust you find may vary constantly. It’s important for all Christians to work on building up their trust in God, but lately I’ve been thinking about how crucial it is for those of us who are also in or associated with the military.

My Lessons In Trust

The truth is that I strayed from God for several years during my teenage-hood, but even before that, I had never firmly placed my trust in God. Faith, yes. Trust, no. It was after I came back from what I call my time of wandering that God began teaching me to lean on him in ways I never had before. Here are two lessons combined together: the couch and the job.

In wanting, praying for, and seeking a clerical job, I put in resumes at almost all the doctors’ offices in my city, and within days I was hired at an office looking only for part-time summer help. I’ll take it! I did take it. But the pay was low, and they weren’t planning to keep me for long.

Two or three months later, I got a call from another office at which I’d applied, and they asked me (months later) whether I was still looking for a job. Telling God I gave him full credit for this amazing opportunity, I went to the interview and took the job. They started me as part time, so as not to interfere with my current job, and they paid me as much as my current job while promising to bump me up to full time and higher pay within a very short time frame. I thanked God profusely, maybe truly meaning my thanks for one of the first times in my life. This, I thought, was surely not coincidence. This was God providing for me! I knew it.

Excited about my new, high-paying job, I started thinking about the possibilities for moving out of my parents’ house. This was something on my mind constantly at that time. It was on my mind partially because I wanted to be independent but mostly because my parents were planning to move out of state as soon as their house sold, and if it sold while I was still unable to afford living alone, I would have to go with them. I ended up going with my co-worker and friend Kellie to Goodwill during a lunch break at my original clerical job, and while I was there I spotted the perfect couch. It was cheap, it was comfy, it didn’t smell like cigarettes, and I wanted it! I called my mom, and she agreed to meet me at the store after work to look at it and decide whether I could keep it at their house until I moved out.

Mom came, and we looked at the couch again. While she agreed that it was nice, she suggested that instead of buying it right away, with money I knew I would have in the future but did not have yet, I should go home and pray about it for a day. At home, I waited a few hours, then asked her again what she thought.

Had I prayed about it? No, Mom, I hadn’t prayed about it yet (said with a sigh). I went back to my room, laid on my bed, and asked God what to do. I hadn’t prayed – really prayed – in years, though I had begun going back to church not too far prior to all of this. Not only that, but it was the first time I remembered just asking God what to do without asking for the result I wanted.

Guess what happened.

He didn’t answer me. He didn’t speak into my head or give me a strong feeling of what he wanted. I got up from my prayer time just as confused and hopeful as before.

The next day I actually forgot all about the couch until my Mom called me at work. She asked whether I would like for my step dad and her to come with me after work to pick up the couch, and I said sure. When we got to Goodwill, though, the couch had already been sold. Normally this would have disappointed me, but for once I recognized it for what it was – God’s answer to my question. Should I get this couch? No? Okay, then.

First day on the job. I hated it.

High pace, high stress office with rude co-workers. I did not even meet the doctor I was working for, and got very little training before being left almost on my own. I was given no breaks throughout the day. I went home feeling very let down, and as I had a day or two off before I would be going back to that office, I began to wonder whether it would be okay to just quit. But no. I had told myself it was an opportunity from God. How could I simply quit and throw it away without giving it a real chance? I determined to stick with it and see what God had for me there, and so, on my second day, after sitting in the car for a few minutes dreading what I had to do, I took a deep breath and headed in to work.

I made it about half the day (just as rotten as the first) before I was called to the back to speak with my office manager and direct supervisor. They told me that I displayed a poor attitude and poor customer service, or something like that, and they said that I could go. Stunned, insulted, but far from disappointed, I took my check for the hours worked and went home. I didn’t understand what had happened aside from the fact that God had given me an opportunity, I had trusted him to show me his purpose in it, and then he took it away.

It was within the next week or two that my office manager at the original job told me that they liked me so much, they wanted me to stay beyond the summer. They upped my pay and hours, and they hired me as a permanent employee. I stayed at this job for two more years, until I married and moved away, and I loved it almost every day.

How Great He Is

I’m not saying I’ve arrived or that I never have trouble trusting. I still question God, and I still try to push for my desires whether or not they are in his plan. But I can say that over the course of the last three years, he has brought me to trust in him more than I ever have before. More than I’ve ever trusted another human being. Above all, I know that he intends only good for me and that all good things come from above, from his hand. Verses that were only nice words now have meaning to me.

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
-James 1:17 (NIV)

“’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.’”
-Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

“The steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in his way…”
-Psalm 37:23 (ESV)

Staying Sane in the Military

More than ever before, more than during any other trial in my life, I have a need for this trust as I face day to day life in the military. While trying to make plans for our lives, for family time, for traveling, for where we live, I must constantly remember that God knows what he is doing.

When I got married, I didn’t know that Hubby’s deployment would be moved up, but God knew. Hubby and I didn’t know it would be so difficult to get into Warrant Officer school; there were problems we didn’t foresee, dumb things that are irritating and annoying because they’re ruining our plans. But all along, God knew these things would come up. He didn’t tell us they were coming, but he planned for them being there – they aren’t a surprise to him. We trust him, every day, to get us through, to show us the path we sometimes cannot see that will lead to our planned destination. We also trust him if he decides to say, “Hey, that destination isn’t exactly what I had planned. Keep following me, though, and I’ll take you some place better.”

It hurts me sometimes that I can’t pass on this same peaceful trust to others! Sometimes I have a hard time understanding (or rather remembering, since I, too, stood in that place), how people can doubt. Don’t they know God’s way is better than their way? Don’t they trust him to take care of them? I can’t force anyone to believe, but I can continue praying for them.

Please, do share your thoughts in the comments! Was there a period in your life that you’re aware of God bringing you to a better trust in him? Are you still waiting for him to teach you how? I was there, too. For a long time, I wanted to believe, but I just didn’t, not quite.

Sorry for the crazy long post!!!

The Bible says that “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God,” and that “you are not your own, for you were bought with a price.” (I Corinthians 6:12-20) As a Christian, I believe the Bible is the Holy Word of God, and thus I believe these statements to be true. But what do these words mean in day to day life?

The (Usual) Application

At many churches, this is a very popular passage from which to pull sermons and lessons to encourage the congregation to abstain from sin. However, many churches also take it further than this.

The application we usually see, that’s not directly written in the text, is to take care of your body. Beyond abstaining from sin, you should also eat right, exercise, not cut your hair, cut your hair, not dye your hair, refrain from getting tattoos or piercings, wear certain clothes, etcetera. The list goes on and on, and it varies from person to person, from church to church.

Obviously, people have different ideas about how it should be applied to their lives, and for that reason I find it a little fishy that we pull this application from the passage in chapter 6. To give some credit, I do believe that people generally have their ideas, either from scripture or not, about what is unacceptable, and they simply use this “body is a temple” passage to drive home their points.

The Question

I believe my question is legitimate: What are the real restrictions regarding what we can do with our own bodies? Where is (are) the line(s) drawn? In the older generations of Christians especially, there is a long-standing belief that God wants us to treat our bodies in a certain way. I would have to agree that God certainly cares about the bodies he made for us, and that he cares about the way we treat them.

But what is the right way? What is the wrong way?

What I don’t find in the Bible is all of these strict regulations I was once made to believe existed. Maybe it’s because I’m young and more liberal. (Don’t laugh, hubby. I’m speaking relatively.) Maybe it’s because of the world in which I grew up. Maybe it’s because I like to think for myself rather than being told what to believe. I don’t know!

I don’t think there is anything to say it’s wrong to change your hair from its natural color or length. I don’t think there is anything to say it’s wrong to wear makeup or unusual clothing. I don’t think there is anything to say it’s wrong to draw on your skin or poke a pretty through a hole in your ear or lip.

Then again, I was taught by my old youth pastor that sometimes, rather than asking “what’s wrong,” one should ask, “what’s right?” This method of decision-making is tricky. If one had to find a useful, positive reason for everything one does, one might not do anything at all.

So the question stands: What are the real restrictions? What is the right way? What is the wrong way?

Not All Things Are Helpful

The very passage that started this whole thing says at the beginning:

“’All things are lawful for me,’
but not all things are helpful.
‘All things are lawful for me,’
but I will not be enslaved by anything.”

In the same book, but in chapter 10, we see a similar text, saying:

“’All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things build up….So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God…”

One of my other favorite passages is 1 Corinthians 8, the whole chapter. Here’s how it goes: The Christians to which Paul writes understand that they have freedom through Christ, and that they are now no longer under, or held to, the Old Testament law, but rather they are under grace. Paul is constantly (in this book and others) reminding his brothers in Christ that being under grace does not give one license to sin, knowing they can be forgiven again. Paul is constantly trying to pound into their heads that they still must think about their actions, for there are still consequences.

In chapter 8, Paul addresses the issue of food that was once offered to idols. Paul understands that idols are not real, for there is only one God, and that the food offered to an idol is no different from other food. This food falls under the category of “all things are lawful for me…” But consider the non-believers, those who think the idols are real. One of two things happens to those people, when they see you eating the food.

1. They may also eat it, but since they believe that the food is defiled, they are sinning against their consciences.

2. They may simply watch you eat it, and since they don’t know what you know, their opinion of you and God is damaged, and you are sinning against them, wounding their consciences.

The conclusion is this: “Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.”

This lesson can be applied to almost any area of our Christian walk, though we may not like it. Do your decisions make your brothers and sisters stumble? Do they wound your family’s consciences?

Our nature, my nature, is to simply do the questionable things behind the backs of those who might be offended. I don’t think this is right, but it’s a step in the right direction. I think this is how we determine whether it’s okay for us to fill in the blank. Who in your life would be offended, or who would stumble because of your decision?

I had to face this when I was 16 and decided to shave my head. I wore a hat to church for fear of offending those in the church who believed women must have long hair. I think, if I truly cared for those people, I should have chosen not to do it at all for their sakes, but I admit I was selfish in my decision.

Being a Christian is not always easy. I ponder these things as I wonder at what reactions I will get to my new hair color. I’m also reminded of the reason behind this lesson, the reason behind Christianity to begin with: Love.

“In this world where hatred seems to grow,
True love goes against the flow,
And becomes so hard to show.
In this world where push turns into shove,
We have strength to rise above
Through the power of His love.
Lord, we need to know the power of Your love”

- “Love” by Petra