Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

I have been busy the last few weeks living my very ordinary daily life.

I have just finished making curtains for my dining room and kitchen, I have had the fabric for a year now and it was time to do something with it.  I am delighted that they  turned out beautiful, just the way I wanted them to.

I have frozen apples that were given to Bobby by a co-worker,an apple pie is waiting for the fall. I have sliced and frozen peaches from a friends tree and made a peach pie from another neighbors tree. I have picked, shelled and frozen black-eyed peas.

I even cooked dinner for 4 nights in a row!!!!

I have looked for a scrapbook and given thought about scrap booking Chris and Whitney’s wedding pictures that I have finally ordered after 5 months.

We have celebrated Birthday dinners for six family members this month, had friends weddings and attended our first couple’s wedding shower.

I have enjoyed being domestic! I have had a lot of time to think as I have been slicing, dicing, freezing and sewing. There have been some nostalgic moments, remembering other summers putting away produce given to us by friends. I have missed the boys running in and out of the kitchen wanting to taste the apples and peaches ( especially after I put cinnamon and sugar on them). I missed shelling peas while watching stupid girl movies and finding both my sons sitting with me shelling, watching the stupid movie and enjoying the afternoon together.

I feel the season change and wonder what the fall holds with the election, but unable to get very intense about much the last few weeks. I hope that I haven’t missed opportunities to pray for the nation. I still struggle with “mild” guilt that I  haven’t been more HOLY during this still time.  (I have enjoyed this time, but don’t want to do this forever–it was a hard way to feed a family in days long gone. )

I have done a lot of listening to God and had some sweet prayer times, and loved just living ordinary life. I wonder if it is okay to be so isolated in my little house with all the domistic activity? As I questioned I fondly remembered one of my favorite scriptures in Jererimiah 29:11 and the context of the 29th chapter of Jerermiah. God loves the lives He has given us to live and wants us to live the ordinary with an awareness that He delights in watching us love our families. 

“4 This is the Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, Israel’s God, to all the exiles I’ve taken from Jerusalem to Babylon:

“Build houses and make yourselves at home. “Put in gardens and eat what grows in that country. “Marry and have children. Encourage your children to marry and have children so that you’ll thrive in that country and not waste away.”Make yourselves at home there and work for the country’s welfare. “Pray for Babylon’s well-being. If things go well for Babylon, things will go well for you.” Yes. Believe it or not, this is the Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, Israel’s God:”

So for this season I have shared the Holy moments of ordinary life with God and will pray for the well-being of the nation I live in and continue to  participate in this daily activity of living well, loving much and laughing often.

Celebrating the holiness of the ordinary,

Tanya

Isaiah 55: 8-9  is a very powerful statement made by God, it is one that I memorized so that I can’t  forget  it. Often I have had to remember this fact about God when nothing else makes sense.

 ” For My thougths are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways.” Declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways than your ways and My thougths than your thoughts.”

I need a new mind to think His thoughts, I can’t think like He does on my own. I will do things that I think are right, because that is the way I was taught or what I have heard others say or do. I don’t want to do what others say or do– I want to say and do what I see and hear my Heavenly Father say and do.

His thougths are impossible for me to have without the working of the Holy Spirit to give me a new mind.

1 Cor 2:14-16 tells us something very important and makes the impossible –possible.
“The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

 ”For who has known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. “

Do you see that? 

 Once we become followers of Jesus Christ, we have the mind of  Christ. He is willing to give us His thougths. Those thougths that are higher than any that we could ever think, higher than the heavens that Isaiah 55 talks about.

Col 2:8  ”See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”

 This passage is encouraging us to think like Christ does and not like the world.

There  are so many scriptures that encourage us to submit our thought life to Christ — I could write a book, but you know there is a great book with all you need to know about the mind of Christ already written.

What I want to think about with you in this blog is what are just a few of those thoughts that are so different than ours?

Rom 5:6-8
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
NIV

Mark 9:35
“If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”  NIV

Luke 6:32-36
32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even `sinners’ love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even `sinners’ do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even `sinners’ lend to `sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. NIV

John 13:12-15
12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them.”You call me `Teacher’ and `Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.
NIV

 Jesus lived His life listening and obeying His Father in Heaven. He was not what the people of the day were expecting. They were  looking for a warrior King to come and set them free from the Romans and establish His Kingdom with force. Jesus came as a servant King to set us free from sin and death, establishing His Kingdom on earth  with mercy and love.

For me to live like Christ lived and to represent His Kingdom on earth as a child of God, I must have the mind of Christ that 2 Corinthians says we have been given. It will take me a lifetime of reading the word, praying and listening before I will even begin to grasp what all He has given me.  

This week I struggled with my thoughts about how to respond to the Olympics being in China, where there is the greatest persecution of Christians happening today. I was convicted of my worldly thoughts of boycott and showing them. The Holy Spirit reminded me that I wasn’t thinking with the mind of Christ. Christ came to show honor to and to search for the lost. He wants to show them FAVOR. He blessed His enemies. He came to those who persecuted Him because He really does love and want to set people free that are living in darkness. Pray that China see such love and kindness from believers that it will cause them to seek the Savior. Pray for protection and  open doors for the evangelist, missionaries,and Christians in China to have safe opportunities to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. Pray that the persecuted Christians in China will make connections with Christians from all over the world visiting their country, so that they can be encouraged and shown love. Pray for the Lord to send help in making a way for those that are being held in prison to find hope in knowing they are not alone. Give them boldness and great faith.

God’s ways are not my ways –but I am willing to keep learning.

Loving you

Tanya