SOULY HIS

Souly His is where my heart is. It is about me, and my journey to discover where He wants me to be. Here I will share devotions that touch me, ideas that inspire me, studies that enlighten me, and everything else between here and there...where ever there is. I hope you enjoy the journey with me.



Saturday, May 22, 2010

My lesson in the clouds...

“Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?” Job 2:10b

During our Night of Worship last night, our worship leader, John, shared about how he was from the south and what he has struggled with the most in moving to Michigan, is the winter. As he put it, “the long, dark, cold, miserable winter." But then he talked about spring and the beauty of the flowers coming up and the grass turning green and the weather becoming warmer with the promise of summer. It reminded me of a sunrise I saw one morning, an amazingly beautiful sunrise, with a full rainbow of color. When I saw it, I thought about how it was the clouds reflecting the colors, which made it so beautiful. Otherwise, it would have been an ordinary sunrise, not that I'm minimizing the beauty of that, but perhaps one that I wouldn't have even noticed. On that morning I thought about how we are, especially as Christ followers, we want the beauty, we just don’t necessarily want to live through the cloudy days to get there. Or as John put it, maybe we can appreciate the spring, simply because we’ve lived through the winter.

Job knew about trouble. He had already lost everything and his wife was telling him to “curse God and die.” (2:9) Yet Job held on, I imagine with all that he had. Many who have lived through a deep, dark valley in their life have expressed that they wouldn’t go back and do it differently, because they wouldn’t want to give up the closeness they felt to God while in that valley.
This morning at bible study one shared, and all agreed, that it’s so much easier to cling to God and surrender to His will with the big, I mean really big, things, than it is in the little day to day things. But what would life be like if we clung daily to Him as He so desires us to do?

We have to remember that the reason we can surrender is because we have a God we can trust. And even though we might not be able to see what He has in store for us, we have to trust that it it's probably bigger than we can even imagine, or hope for, or dream. And we have to learn to accept the trials that come and not just the blessing, and remember that we only have the rainbow because we've had the rain.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Sometimes I wonder...

Sometimes I wonder what I am doing here. The question has so many different paths of reasoning. "What am I doing here?" Or, "What am I doing here?" Or even, "What am I doing here?" While I don't necessarily know why I am here doing what I'm doing, I do know what I'm trying to do here. I'm trying to build a ministry. But God ever so gently reminds me that it is not up to me to build it, but to trust in Him. Then I go back to the sermon message a few weeks ago, where we were reminded that God probably isn't going to give us more to do, if we haven't already done what he's previously asked of us. I wanted to go back to school, but didn't feel like I should take the loans to do it. So I found a free study, with pretty much the same curriculum, but no degree. I know that I need the knowledge more than the degree, yet I haven't even completed one assignment. This type of study, where you work at your own pace, is a real stretch for me. I prefer the plans all laid out and and the due dates assigned. But I know this is something God is asking me to complete.

I also met an amazing woman with a speaking ministry a couple of weeks ago and she mentioned us perhaps speaking together. What an opportunity! Yet, I haven't followed up on it. So what am I doing here? Paul had the same problem at times, Romans 7:16 says, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."

I want to let God use me to speak to others about how we can experience His grace, His strength and His courage. But so often I waste the time I should be using for that purpose, or I find I truly need the lesson for myself that day. I need to continually remind myself of Philippians 3:13 and forget[ting] what lies behind [me] (and the mistakes I've made trying to get where He wants me to be) and strain[ing] forward to what lies ahead.

I am so thankful that the faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. His faithfulness is great; and His mercies begin a fresh each morning. (Lamentations 3:22-23)

HIS in Service (and I can't do it on my own),