Walk Boldly With Jesus

What Does the Lord Require of Us?

Micah 6:8 “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

This verse came right after God was making a case against Israel.  He was telling them to remember all He had done for them and then they were asking how they should appear before the Lord.  Should they bring burnt offering, should they give him thousands of lambs or rivers of oil?  This is the reply they get back.  “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”  I feel as though this is how we would all act.  We hear that God is angry with us and we want to know what we can do to fix it.  Our first thought would be similar to their first thought I bet.  We would try to give God something.  Have you ever heard the saying if you through enough money at a problem it will go away?  God is not like this.  There is not amount of money that you could give Him to get away with your sins.  God does not need anything that you have to give Him.  He doesn’t need anything.  

What God requires of us does not take any money.  It is not an object which we can buy with money either.  What God requires of us is more about who we are and how we live.  This is much harder.  Becoming someone different is difficult and not nearly as easy as buying something.  This is why that is our first go to solution.  We want the easy way out.  Who wants to take the hard way?  But guess what?  No one ever grows taking the easy way.  Your strength is forged in battle.  Your perseverance and resilience comes from being knocked down and then standing back up.   Think about the difference if you walked up the access road to the top of the mountain, or you scaled the cliffs to get to the top, which would give your muscles a better workout?  Which way would help you get stronger faster?  It is the same with life.

None of us enjoy the battles, none of us like taking the long way around and yet it is necessary to get you to be there person you want to be.  The person God wants you to be. God is calling you to a better life, a life you will love and be so glad once you get there.  And you will get there, just as the Israelites got to the promised land.  The question is how long is it going to take to get you there?  I heard Father Mike talking the other day and he said that it took the Israelites less than 2 weeks to get to the promised land.   Then they sent scouts up to look at the land and search out their strengths and weaknesses. Check out their food and the situation in the cities.  They were supposed to scout it out and report back.  Then God would lead them to their victory.  However, they reported back that they shouldn’t attack.  That the men of those lands were too big and too numerous.  The felt defeated before they even tried.  They turned their backs on God and did not think He could help them win.  For this, God punished them to walk the dessert for 40 more years.  Are you holding up your progress by doubting that God can help you?  Are you prolonging your suffering and taking the longer way because you don’t want to follow God’s ways?  

This verse is telling us what God is requiring of us.  “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”  He is not requiring us to give Him lots of sacrifices each day.  He is not asking us for special oil.  He is not asking us for anything that we can buy. He is asking us to do justice.  I found several articles that discuss the verse and how to do what the Lord is requiring of us.  I will share some of the things I found in an article titled, How to Do Justice, Love Mercy, and Walk Humbly with God by Jason Soroski.  (CLICK HERE FOR ARTICLE)  According to Jason, “To do Justice means to know and seek the justice and righteousness of God in our own lives and in the world around us. It is important to note that we are to do justice. It is not just a thought, but something that we act upon, living out justice not just in what we say but in what we do.  He also says, “True Justice is living out the truth of Scripture, speaking truth to others. It is done in love and spoken through mercy and humility. God requires us to do justice not to place ourselves as superior to others, but to walk in love, sharing and living out the truth of the gospel.”

Next the verse says we should love kindness.  I wish more people in this world loved kindness.  I feel as though sometimes, when something happens in the world, like Covid, it really brings out peoples kindness.  At least at the beginning of it all we saw everyone wanting to help everyone.  Also when this war in Ukraine started.  I know there is a family in my town that took on a refuge family from Ukraine.  The community really came together to provide what was needed for that family.  However, there are so many other times when I just see people being unkind.  God is calling us not just to be kind, but to love kindness.  When we love something we want to share it with others.  God is calling us to share our kindness with others.  

The third thing the Lord is requiring of us is to walk humbly with your God.  In Philippians 2:3 it says, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility value others about yourselves.  Jason Soroski says in his article that “We walk humbly with God when we acknowledge that He is just and that only through His mercy are we made whole. When we truly believe this, it flows out of our lives and into the lives of others. As with justice, humility is an action. We are to walk with Christ in humility, not running ahead, not standing still, Humility is perhaps one of the hardest things for us to show. We live in a world that glorifies the strongest, the smartest, and the best. Humility, therefore, runs counter to everything we are taught to hold meaning. Yet Jesus gives the exact opposite example. The apostle Paul reminds us in Philippians 2:7-8 that Jesus displayed the ultimate act of humility in that, “he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!”

Jason concludes, “These things are required of us because added together they keep our hearts balanced, focused, and centered on godly things. When we lean too far into any one of these things, we fall into a trap: justice without mercy leads to cruelty, mercy without justice leads to vulnerability, and humility without confidence in God’s justice and love for God’s mercy leads to fear and lack of self-worth. Yet when these three are in perfect biblical balance as laid out in Micah 6:8, we find ourselves becoming imitators of Christ, who was filled with grace and truth and placed the needs of others above His own.”  Let us all try to become imitators of Christ.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, please help us to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with you God.  Lord, if we don’t understand what this means, please give us an understanding of what you are calling us to do.  Help us seek out an understanding of what you require from us so we can give it to you.  Forgive us Lord, for wanting to take the easy way out.  Give us the strength to persevere through hard times.  Give us the wisdom to know when we are making things harder than they have to be.  Help us to know we are the reason things are taking so long, just as the Israelites were the reason they needed to wander for 40 years in the wilderness.  We love you Lord, you are truly amazing.  We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  Tomorrow’s witness will be from my friend Emerald.  Emerald’s story is one many of us can relate to.  She fell away from the church and was not really sure what was true and what wasn’t.  She embarked on a journey of truth of herself.  Then when she felt called to go back to church, she struggled with feelings of worthiness and whether or not she would be accepted.  I think if we are honest with ourselves we will all see ourselves in some aspect of Emerald’s story.  I look forward to sharing that with you tomorrow.  Have a blessed day!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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Do we always recognize Jesus?

John 20:11-16 “ But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb;  and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”  When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.  Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).”

I was listening to this recount of the resurrection the other day and as soon as I heard these verses I thought, how many times have we seen Jesus and yet we didn’t recognize Him?  Has this ever happened to you?  Have you ever had an encounter with Jesus and yet you didn’t know it at the time?  Then when you look back you realize that must have been what it was?  I think this happens more often than we think it does.  God works through all of us.  Did you ever have someone give you a kind word at the exact moment that you needed it?  That was Jesus.  Did you ever have someone bail you out of a situation that you couldn’t get out of?  That was Jesus.  Did you ever have something that seemed like a coincidence and yet at the same time it seemed to good to be true?  That was Jesus.  

Just as Mary did  not recognize Jesus when she first saw Him after His resurrection, we will not always recognize Him.  We probably run into him several times a day and yet we don’t recognize him.  He is in each one of us.  When you are being kind and showing love to others Jesus’ light is shining through you.  You might not even know you are doing it, but God uses each of us to do His will.  We just need to listen for His promptings.  Did you ever get a feeling that you were supposed to call someone but you didn’t know why?  Then when you called the person they said you made their day?  That was God using you.  Did you ever feel prompted to pray for someone, or give someone a hug and you didn’t understand why?  That was God using you.  You were the face of Jesus for that person in need at that moment.  God has a plan and He allows us to be a part of it.  He allows us to be the face of Jesus to others.  Isn’t that amazing?  

Another thing I thought of when I reread this scripture is that Mary was so focused on what she was expecting to see, Jesus in the tomb that she didn’t even realize what she was actually seeing. The verse says, “But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb;  and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”  Mary looked in the tomb and saw two angels.  I feel as though that part is just skipped over.  Mary not only saw two angels, but they spoke to her, they asked her a question.  She answered them and told them who she was looking for and then she just turned away.  I wonder what was going through her mind.  I wonder how she could look at and talk to two angels and yet not even really care?  Just go about her day like something miraculous didn’t just happen. It’s almost as if she didn’t realize they were angels.

I wonder how many times we have done this?  I wonder how many times we have been presented with a miracle and we didn’t notice it because it wasn’t what we were looking for.  For instance, my husband was not a fan of his job at one point.  He had been looking for another job but couldn’t find what he was looking for.  Then unexpectedly he had to leave his job that he didn’t really like.  He was very upset and felt bad about it.  However, the job he got was so much better than the one he had.  It was actually everything he had been praying for, but didn’t realize it because it didn’t come in the way that he would have liked it to have come.  

We do this a lot.  We ask God for things and then when He gives us what we want we don’t recognize it if it doesn’t look like we thought it would. We ask for a new job but then get upset when we loose the old one.  We ask for children but then get upset if that doesn’t look like we thought it would.  Maybe we wanted boys and got girls, maybe we wanted 2 and got 3, whatever it is, we can fail to see the miracle sometimes because it looks different from what we thought it would.  Sometimes our miracles can come in very unexpected ways. Sometimes people find themselves working ridiculous hours at work, never seeing their families and as much as they want to stop, they just can’t.  Then something happens, usually some sort of tragedy and they finally wake up and realize this tragedy was the miracle they needed to finally wake up and put their family first.  

I hope you don’t have to endure a tragedy to realize the miracles in your life.  We all have miracles in our lives, big ones and small ones.  If we are on the lookout for them then we will be more likely to see them.  Also, if we know that Jesus is all around us, and we are on the lookout for Him, we will start to see Him more as well.  The next time someone does something kind for you, know that is Jesus shining through them.  The next time you feel a prompting to do something kind, even if you don’t know why and even if you don’t understand it, do it.  Perhaps God is using you to be the face of Jesus for someone who really needs it.  God is calling each one of us to be his disciples.  Will you answer that call?

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we love you and we are sorry if we can’t always recognize you.  We are sorry if our own expectations get in the way of us noticing the miracles you are blessing us with.  Lord, we ask that you open our eyes to see all the miracles that you do in our lives.  Big, or small, open our eyes to let us see them.  Lord, help us to hear your call and to listen to it.  You are so amazing and we miss somethings because we are so stuck in our own ways.  Helps us to get unstuck.  Sometimes we don’t listen when your ask us to do something, help us to listen more and to do what you ask of us.  You are our alighting father and we ask that you help us obey your commands.  You are so good and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus holy name, amen.

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow.  Have a blessed day!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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Making Scripture Personal

Psalm 91 "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High,     who abides in the shadow of the Almighty,
will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress;     my God, in whom I trust.”
For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler     and from the deadly pestilence;  he will cover you with his pinions,     and under his wings you will find refuge;     his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
You will not fear the terror of the night,     nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,     nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

A thousand may fall at your side,     ten thousand at your right hand;     but it will not come near you.
You will only look with your eyes     and see the recompense of the wicked.

Because you have made the Lord your refuge,[a]     the Most High your habitation,
no evil shall befall you,     no scourge come near your tent.

For he will give his angels charge of you     to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up,     lest you dash your foot against a stone.
You will tread on the lion and the adder,     the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot.

Because he cleaves to me in love, I will deliver him;     I will protect him, because he knows my name.
When he calls to me, I will answer him;     I will be with him in trouble,     I will rescue him and honor him.
With long life I will satisfy him,     and show him my salvation.

Have you ever personalized scripture before?  Have you ever replaced the word Israelites for your name?  Have you ever just inserted your name into scripture to make it more personal to you?  What do you think about this idea?  If you haven’t done it before, why haven’t you?  Is it because you never thought of it before?  Is it because you think it is wrong to add your name to the holy scriptures.  Is it because you can’t see how the Bible and the scriptures apply to you in your life?  Take a moment and really think about this idea of personalizing scripture.  I will be honest with you, I have not done it a lot.  I have heard of this idea before and I though it sounded like an awesome idea, and then I just never really did anything with it.  I did an episode awhile back #107 I will be Joyful in God my Savior.  It was about Habakkuk 3:17-19 and how I read a story in Dave Hollis’ Book titled “Built Through Courage,” that his friend had rewritten that verse to fit her particular circumstances.  It was powerful for him to hear this and then he rewrote it to fit his particular circumstance as well.  If you would like to hear how they rewrote that verse you can check out that episode, #107.  

Today I want to talk to you about why personalizing scripture can help you grown in your faith.  The Bible is not just a collection of words, or a collection of stories that are nice to read.  The Bible is one of God’s way of communicating with us. Using the Bible God is teaching us how to act, how to interact with each other, what to do, what not to do.  He is also teaching us about Him and His ways.  He is teaching us about His love and His forgiveness.  He is communicating with us and if we can make that communication more personal then we will connect  to it more.  When your were in school did you pay more attention when the teacher was talking to the whole class, or when she was talking to you individually?  What about at a work meeting?  Would you pay more attention if your boss said your name before he started talking, or if he was addressing the whole audience?  I think we can all agree that we would pay more attention if someone was talking to us directly.  It is the same with the Bible.  If you put you name into the Bible verse you will pay more attention because it will feel as though that verse was written directly for you.  I will now read today’s verse except I have I personalized it.  Listen and see if you connect with this one more than the other?

I dwell in the shelter of the Most High,     I abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
I will say to you Lord, “My refuge and my fortress;     it is you, in whom I trust.”
For You will deliver me from the snare of the fowler     and from the deadly pestilence;  You will cover me with your pinions,     and under your wings I will find refuge;     your faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
I will not fear the terror of the night,     nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,     nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

A thousand may fall at my side,     ten thousand at my right hand;     but it will not come near me.
I will only look with your eyes     and see the recompense of the wicked.

Because I have made the Lord my refuge,     the Most High my habitation,
no evil shall befall me,     no scourge come near my tent.

For you will give your angels charge of me     to guard me in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear me up,     lest I dash my foot against a stone.
I will tread on the lion and the adder,     the young lion and the serpent I will trample under foot.

Because I cleave to you in love, You will deliver me;     You will protect me, because I know your name.
When I call to you, You will answer me;     You will be with me in trouble,     You will rescue me and honor me.
With long life you will satisfy me,     and show me your salvation.

Did you find this more personal?  Instead of saying it the original way, I replaced the “he’s” with I.  What did you think?  Could you tell the difference?  Did you feel any different after one more than the other?

You can also personalize it by taking out the troubles that are mentioned in the verse and adding your own troubles.  For instance you could change it to say:

For You will deliver me from all my anxiety

and from my insecurities.  You will cover me with your pinions,     and under your wings I will find refuge;     your faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
I will not fear the uncertainty of the future     nor the stresses of each day,
nor the loneliness of the world,     nor the welfare of my family.

A thousand may fall at my side,     ten thousand at my right hand;     but it will not come near me.
I will only look with your eyes     and see the recompense of the wicked.

This is just an example to show you how you might want to change the scripture.  There are many ways you can personalize scripture.  Rick Warren, author of A Purpose Driven Life, suggests that we can replace any pronouns or nouns in scripture with our name.  For example, if he were personalizing John 3:16, He'd write something like this: 'For God so loved Rick, he gave his one and only Son so that Rick would not perish but have everlasting life.”  Or, "Or, for Philippians 1:6: 'He who began a good work in Rick Warren will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.’"  Warren went on to note that if one uses the "personalize-it method," the results will "strengthen your faith and encourage yourself. Do this, and many passages of Scripture will literally bring tears to your eyes. You'll start to read the Bible as God's love letter to you," continued Warren.

There are article out there that can give you more examples of how to do this.  I just wanted to introduce you to the idea today.  If you think it sounds like something you would like to try I say you just go for it.  There is no right or wrong way to do it.  Take a scripture verse and see how it can apply to your exact circumstances.  Instead of reading the Bible as if it is a collection of stories completely unrelated to your life, start reading it as if God is talking to you, right where you are, in the circumstances that you are in.  I bet the Bible will come to life in a whole new way.  Give it a try, if you don’t like it, no worries.  However, what if you do try it and it is life changing?  Don’t let this opportunity pass you by.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, help us to read your scripture more.  Put it on our hearts and give us a greater desire to read your Word every day.  Help us to read it as if you are talking directly to us, because you are.  Open our eyes and help us to see that your Word is not just for the Israelites that lived over 2,000 years ago, it for us as well.  Lord we love you and we are so grateful that you love us enough to give a your Word so we can get to know you.  You are amazing and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.  

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you on Monday.  Have a blessed weekend.  

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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A World Washed In Sunshine

Job 11:13-20 “Still, if you set your heart on God and reach out to him, If you scrub your hands of sin and refuse to entertain evil in your home,You’ll be able to face the world unashamed and keep a firm grip on life, guiltless and fearless. You’ll forget your troubles; they’ll be like old, faded photographs. Your world will be washed in sunshine,  every shadow dispersed by dawn. Full of hope, you’ll relax, confident again; you’ll look around, sit back, and take it easy.  Expansive, without a care in the world, you’ll be hunted out by many for your blessing. But the wicked will see none of this. They’re headed down a dead-end road with nothing to look forward to—nothing.” (msg. translation)

How great would it be to forget your troubles.  The verse gives us the image of old, faded photographs.  Imagine if your troubles were so far away that they felt like old faded photographs?  It also says your world would be washed in sunshine, every shadow dispersed by dawn.  Imagine if this were true?  You life was bright and filled with light and there was no darkness.  Sin lurked in the darkness.  Then enemy lurked in the darkness.  However, if we scrub our hands of sin and refuse to entertain evil in our home the we can live in the light.  We can chase away our troubles.  Turning away from sin is not something that is easy and it is not something we can do on our own.  This is why God is telling us to reach out to Him.  If we ask Him for help and He will help us.  

The next line says “full of hope, you’ll relax, confident again; you’ll look around, sit back, and take it easy.  Doesn’t that sound so nice?  When is the last time you felt like that?  When is the last time you looked around at your life, or this world that we live in and felt like you could take it easy?  Most people I know are super stressed about what is going on in this world.  They are worried about the government in the United States.  They are worried about their jobs and how it will be affected if they do or do not take the covid vaccine.  They are worried about their civil rights and personal freedom of choice and wonder if they will be taken away from them.  There are so many people that ware worried about the war in Europe and I think we all wonder when it will stop.  I have heard many people are super worried that this war between two countries will turn into WW III,  I get it.  There is a lot of scary things going on in the world right now and that causes many of us to be anxious and to be worried.  

If this is you, first know that you are not alone.  There are many people who are stressing and worrying about all these things too.  You are in good company.  The second thing I want you to know is that you don’t have to keep worrying and being anxious about these things.  Part of the reason that we worry so much is because we watch or read the news a lot.  When we are constantly putting that information into our brain, then our brains are going to focus on it.  I have talked before about our Reticular Activator System.  It is a filter that we all have in our brains.  Our brains take in so much information per second and our brain can’t process it all, so it filters out the things it doesn’t think we are interested in.  We set our filter by the things we do, watch, read, etc.  If we spend a lot of time on something then our brain thinks we are interested in it and so it lets in all the info that it sees on those things and filters out a lot of other things.  

For instance, if you are constantly watching news about the war then your brain thinks you are really interested in that topic and so it will point out things about the war every where you look.  If you are suddenly into running a lot, your brain would allow in all things that have to do with running.  For instance, my friend said one time that it seems like everyone has run a marathon.  In all actuality less than 1% of the population of the United States have run a marathon.  It just seemed like more to her because everywhere she looked her brain showed her runners.  

If you want to be full of hope, relax,  and be confident again you have the power to do this.  You just need to change your focus.  I had a friend that was very upset with all that is going on in the world.  It was affecting her job and even her motivation to get out of bed in the morning.  She felt like what was the point of getting out of bed when the world was falling apart anyway.  I asked her to make one small change.  Stop watching the news.  Here’s the thing, yes, it is important to be informed, but do you really need to watch the news and check the news as often as you do?  Is that why you are checking the news, to be informed?  Or, are you checking if obsessively?  If the news is affecting your mood and you feel you are anxious and worried a lot, stop watching the news.  I promise you will see that worry and anxiety lessen.  Sometimes we think we will worry less if we are more informed.  I don’t think this is the case with the news because it is set up to shock you.  They want you to keep watching so it is not just facts, it is information with a spin that makes you want to keep watching.  

In my opinion, if there is nothing you can change about what is going on, then it doesn’t do any good to obsess about it.  We don’t know what is going to happen with the war in Ukraine.  Hopefully it will end soon, and maybe it will turn into WW III.  Either way there is nothing we can do to change it.  The government is a mess right now, but there is nothing we can do to change that either.  There are things we can do sometimes.  We can vote in local elections.  We can write to our congressmen and women.  However, watching the news and worrying won’t change anything and it is not serving most of us.  Nothing good is coming out of obsessively watching the news.  If you find that you are anxious and worried a lot I challenge you to take a one week break from the news, and just see how you feel.  You do not have to take my word for it.  Test it out and see for yourself.  I know my friend said she felt so much better!

The next line of the verse says, “Expansive, without a care in the world, you’ll be hunted out by many for your blessing. But the wicked will see none of this. They’re headed down a dead-end road with nothing to look forward to—nothing.”  Imagine if you didn’t have a care in the world?  Can you remember the last time you didn’t have a care in the world?  It was probably when you were a child.  “You’ll be hunted out by many for your blessing.  Imagine that.  People seeking you out for your blessing.  This whole verse is telling us what we need to do to have this extraordinary life.  If we want the things we talked about in this verse we need to reach out to the Lord and scrub sin from our lives.  We don’t have to do this perfectly.  God is not expecting us to wake up one day and sin no more.  It isn’t about being perfect, it is about our small daily decisions.  Can you avoid one sin today?  Can you acknowledge to God some sin that you know you are struggling with?  Can you just take one step closer to God today?  The verse says the wicked will see none of this.  They are headed down a dead-end road with noting to look forward to-nothing.  We don’t want this to be us.  We want the carefree life, the sun washed life.  We want to relax and have all of our troubles disappear.  God is telling us how to make this happen, now all we have to do it say yes.  Yes Lord, I will reach out to you.  Yes, Lord, I struggle with sin and I want to sin no more, please help me.  Yes Lord, I want all that you offer to me.  Yes Lord, I will do my best to scrub sin from my life with your help.  It feel impossible, but Matthew 19:26 says, “With God all things are Possible.”

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we want to turn away from sin, please help us.  We want to reach out to you in our time of need, why is this so hard?  Please help us reach out Lord.  Lord, we accept your offer of a world washed with sunshine and free of shadows, help us do our part to live in that world.  We would love for our troubles to go away.  We are so grateful for all of your promises.  It is amazing how you take care of us so well when we are turning away from you so often.  Lord, we are so grateful that you are so forgiving and that you shower us with grace.  I don’t know where we would be without all that grace.  Help us to accept your grace and forgiveness.  We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow.  Have a blessed day!

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If you would like to share your witness or your story about how God is working in your life please send me a message.  It does not take a lot of time and could make a real difference in someone's life.  Email me at [email protected] or (click here).

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Reach Out To God

Job 11:13-20 “Still, if you set your heart on God and reach out to him, If you scrub your hands of sin and refuse to entertain evil in your home,You’ll be able to face the world unashamed and keep a firm grip on life, guiltless and fearless. You’ll forget your troubles; they’ll be like old, faded photographs. Your world will be washed in sunshine,  every shadow dispersed by dawn. Full of hope, you’ll relax, confident again; you’ll look around, sit back, and take it easy.  Expansive, without a care in the world, you’ll be hunted out by many for your blessing. But the wicked will see none of this. They’re headed down a dead-end road with nothing to look forward to—nothing.” (msg. translation)

When I read this, I thought is sounded so beautiful.  I usually the use the New Revised Standard Version-Catholic Edition for the translation, however, sometimes I like to look at various translations because even though they all say the same thing, they say it using different words.  If you haven’t done this before there is a website you can go to www.biblegateway.com and you put in the verse you are looking for and then there is a drop down menu where you can select all different translations of the Bible.  It really cool.  There is also an app called The Bible app and it has a bunch of Bible translations on there too if you prefer apps to websites.  The message translation is one that takes the Bible verse and puts it in terms that are more common in todays language.  

Today this verse is telling us that if we set our heart on God and reach out to Him, and if we scrub our hands of sin and refuse to entertain evil in our homes, then we will be able to face the world unashamed and keep a firm grip on life, guiltless and fearless.  Is it me, or is this said with such ease?  As if it’s not that difficult to do.  I was going to say that the first part is not that hard, we can set our hearts on God and reach out to Him pretty easily, however, then the Holy Spirit stopped me and said, “Are your hearts set on God?” Instead of answering this question quickly I think we should take a moment and think about it.  What are our hearts set on?  What is the first thing we think of in the morning?  What is the first thing you think about all throughout the day?  What is the last think you think about before bed?  How many times throughout the day are you thinking about God?  Do you think about Him more than anything else?  Is there something else in your life that you set your heart to?  What comes to mind for me is my phone, social media and watching TV.  Am I putting these things above God?  Is my heart set, maybe by default, to these things?  I want God to be first in my life.  I want to set my heart to Him, so why am I going on social media before having my prayer time.  Why am I always checking my phone, but not finding the time to write in my journal.  Man, this isn’t where I thought this would be going today and yet I feel very convicted to take a hard look at my priorities and align them with my desire to put God first.  We can say we love God all we want, but if our actions don’t align then those might just be words.  

It also said that we reach out to God, and I though this was easy too.  However, again the Holy Spirit reminded me about how much we like to solve things on our own.  Also, how hard it is for some of us to turn to the Lord.  There are many reasons why someone might struggle reaching out to the Lord.  One of those reasons might be that they have a hard time asking for help.  They just want to fix it themselves so that they don’t have to ask for  help.  Another reason might be that they don’t feel they are worthy of help.  They feel they aren’t good enough to ask God for help.  Someone else might think that God has let them down in the past because He didn’t answer their prayers the way they wanted Him to.  It could be any number of reasons that we are not reaching out for the Lord.  However, as this verse is saying, if we could figure out how to set our hearts to God and reach out to him, we would be able to have a firmer grip on life.

It also says if we scrub our hands of sin and refuse to entertain evil in our home we will be able to face the world unashamed.  Wouldn’t that we great!  In my opinion there is far too much shame in this world.  I mean there are a lot of awful things going on in the world, but the people doing them are not the ones that are filled with shame.  The people that are filled with shame are the people who are trying to do in God’s eyes and yet feel like they are falling short.  We feel shame because we aren’t as good a parent as we want to be.  We feel shame because we tried and failed.  We feel shame because we aren’t living up to the perfect standards that we decided God wanted from us.  Shame does not come from the Lord.  The Lord does want us to acknowledge our sins and then repent for them but he doesn’t want us to feel shame from them.  This verse is telling us to scrub sin from our hands.  The person who is saying this is talking to Job, whom we know is blameless in the eyes of the Lord.  Job was not being judged with all these things that were afflicting him.  There will be many people throughout your life that will try to tell you about your sins.  They will try to make you feel shame because of some perceived sin that you have done.  You are the best judge of your sins.  Do not let others make you feel ashamed.  Yes, try not to sin and try to not entertain evil from you home.  However, if you do sin, repent to the Lord and accept His forgiveness.  

This verse is pretty long, so I will cover the second half of it in the episode on Thursday.  Today I challenge you to think of ways in which you can set your heart to God.  What would that look like for you?  What could you do to show God that He is number one in your life?  For me, that looks like starting my day off with His word, even if I feel I have other things I need to do first.  It means writing in my prayer journal before sitting down to watch TV.  What will it look like for you?  The second things we talked about is scrubbing out sin.  What does this look like for you?  If you are Catholic, maybe it means going to confession more often?  If you are not Catholic, maybe it means sitting down with God and discussing the ways you are not living the way He is calling us to live.  Maybe it means you pick one thing that you know you shouldn’t be doing, and stop doing it.  This will look different for each one of us.  I ask you to take a few minutes and think about how you can implement these two requests into your lives.  God is calling us to be better, let's answer that call!

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord we are all struggling with different things.  Help us each figure out how we can reach out to you more.  How we can set our hearts on you and how we can scrub out sin in our lives.  Lord, help to convict us of how we can change.  Help us to not feel shameful.  Help us to repent and turn back to you accepting your forgiveness and feeling your love.  Lord, you don’t condemn us, you just love us.  Help us to feel that love and to love you back as best we can.  You are so amazing Lord.  The way you forgive our sins and love us so completely.  We are so very grateful and we ask all of this in accordance with our will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.

Thank you so much for joining me on our journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  This week’s witness will be Brandy H.  Brandy talks about her faith, her family, and the miracles she saw God do with her youngest daughter.  It is a fascinating witness of God’s glory and you won’t want to miss it.  I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow!  Have a blessed day!

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Patience Is A Virtue

Sirach 1:23 “Those who are patient stay calm until the right moment, and then cheerfulness comes back to them.  They hold back their words until the right moment; then the lips of many tell of their good sense.”

Have you ever heard people say, patience is a virtue?  I have heard it frequently and it is usually said when someone is struggling with patience.  What is a virtue?  According to my quick internet search virtue has been defined as “conformity of life and conduct with the principles of morality.” The virtues are thus the practical attitudes and habits adopted in obedience to those principles.  It seems there is much discussion online whether patience is actually a virtue or not.  However, most agree that it is not a virtue. The saying patience is a virtue is showing how important and good having patience is.  Have you ever known someone that seemed to have an unlimited amount of patience? That was my mom.

She was the oldest of 10 children growing up and being the oldest meant that she had to help raise them.  It also meant if my grandmother was sick, she needed to step in and take care of everyone until she got better.  This happened one time, I forget how old she was, although I know she was still in school.  My grandfather was away as he was in the Navy and my grandmother got very sick.  My mom had to miss I think about 3 months of school so she could take care of the kids while my grandma was sick.  You might think, after being the oldest of 10 kids, she wouldn’t want any kids, or maybe she might want one or two, but definitely not too many.  You would be wrong.  My parents got married wanting 12 children.  Now, I can see how a Catholic couple could have 12 kids, but going into the marriage wanting that many, after having just helped raise 9 is beyond me.  My husband thought I was crazy wanting four kids.  My mom and dad had 11 kids.  

Now, you would think after helping to raise 10 kids and then raising 11 kids of your own, you would be done with children by the time your kids were grown.  You would think my mom would be kinda tired of kids at that point.  Not that kids are bad.  I love children.  I just know how much work it is to raise children and I have no idea how hard it is to raise 11 children but I can imagine it is harder than raising 3.  My mom did not take a break.  When my youngest brother was in school, I’m not sure what age, she went to work at a Montessori school for 3-5 year olds.  She was in her glory.  She just really loves children.  The reason I am telling you all of this is because my mom had so much patience.  Now, I am not saying she never lost her cool, because she did, she is human after all. However, she could be faced with immensely difficult situations and stay very calm.  Because we had a lot of kids growing up, we didn’t really have a lot of money.  Thankfully, my dad had a very good job, however, it still wasn’t enough money most of the time because of the amount of kids they had.  My mom would see that we had more bills than money, and she would stay calm.  I am sure it probably stressed her out, but some people get really angry when they get stressed.  She did not.  She remained calm, and just called the places and set up payment plans.  

I was a child that did not like to get up in the morning, which is funny to me know as I was up at 4 am this morning.  However, when I was in school, I hated waking up.  Often times I would not get out of bed until about the 6th time of being woken up.  Yet, I can’t remember my mom yelling at me once for it.  Even if I was late to the car, she was just patiently waiting for me.  My siblings, not so patient, but who could blame them.  I wasn’t intending this episode to be about my mom, although I am not surprised that is where the Holy Spirit took me because I have always admired my mom’s patience.  I have had to develop a lot of patience over the years.  Well, I guess I didn’t have to, but I chose to do that instead of being angry and frustrated all the time.  Do you know that you have a choice?  You can choose to develop more patience.  It is not as if there is a finite amount of patience and it is not as if you either have it or you don’t.  You can work on it and you can become more patient if you want to.

The verse says, “Those who are patient stay calm until the right moment, and then cheerfulness comes back to them.  They hold back their words until the right moment; then the lips of many tell of their good sense.”  There are two parts to this verse.  The first one is “Those who are patient stay calm until the right moment, and then cheerfulness comes back to them.”  This is so true.  Can you picture a time when you have stayed calm in a situation? Didn’t it feel less stressful?  Were you able to be happy in the difficult situation?  When there is at least on person that is being patient and remaining calm, then it usually helps others to do the same.  We tend to mirror other peoples emotions.  This is why they say not to make a big deal when your children are little and they fall down.  If you freak out, they freak out.  If you remain calm, they may remain calm.  The mirror our emotions, especially when they are younger.  

Another reason to become more patient is because being impatient never helps a situation.  It usually has the opposite effect.  Have you noticed when you are in a hurry, everything goes wrong?  You can’t find your shoes, your keys, your jacket, whatever it is you need.  Or you walk out of the house and forget things because you were in a hurry.  Also, if you are in a hurry and you are waiting on others, being impatient usually starts a fight and there definitely aren’t those cheerful feeling the verse is talking about.  When we are impatient with those we are trying to get out of the house, they often get angry and then is slows us down even more.  This was a big lesson that God showed me over and over again when my kids were little.    If we were late, rushing the kids, nagging the kids and being frustrated with the kids, was not going to get them out of the house any faster.  I had to learn to remain calm, patient, compassionate and helpful.  Instead of yelling at the to get their shoes on I would place their shoes by the door, ask if they needed help putting them on, or sometimes, just put the shoes in the car for them so they could do it in the car.  When I was able to be patient and remain calm, we definitely had a more cheerful car ride.

The second part of this verse says, “They hold back their words until the right moment; then the lips of many tell of their good sense.” Have you ever noticed that when we are impatient we don’t always say the nicest things?  Even if they are things that need to be said, we don’t say them at the right time if we are not remaining calm.  For instance, it would have been completely appropriate for my mom to sit me down when I was younger and talk with me about how important it was to get up in the mornings and how if I get to the car late, I am making everyone late.  And she might have, I just don’t remember.  However, yelling at me in the morning when I am half asleep and when we are trying to get out the door is not the right time.  I know when I was impatient with my kids because we needed to get somewhere and we were late, I would slip into lecture mode.  You have to get up earlier, I told you to make sure you had everything the night before, we are going to be late now because you can’t be bothered to hurry, and whatever else I used to say.  Those were definitely not my finest hours.  Although I know we all have those moments as parents.  It would absolutely been appropriate after the fact, not in the moment, to talk about why we were late and what we could do differently next time.  The verse doesn’t say, they hold back their words forever.  It says they hold their words for the right moment.  This is so important.  There is a time and place to say things and learning to know when that is will serve you well.

There is a challenge that I learned about in my mentoring group.  It is called the Zip It Challenge and it is based on a best selling book by Karen Ehman.  You can look it up online and you will find the book.  I haven’t read it but it looks really good, so I may have to get it.  She said she covers eight major topics: taming our tempers, sarcasm, gossip, gracious speech, sweet and salty language, asking for forgiveness, whether to speak up or remain silent, and how God’s word can alter our words. I could use some help in all those areas.  However, the zip it challenge is when you are more intentional with your words.  It is where you spend the next 40 days, or 20 days, or even just one day, realizing that you don’t have to say every thought that comes into your mind.  Before saying something, stop and ask yourself, does this need to be said?  Will this still matter to me in 5 years?  I have heard of numerous people taking this challenge it reporting it really helped their relationships, whether is was with the kids or their spouse or their parents.  There are lots of things we say that just don’t really need to be said.  We think we are helping our loved ones, but many times, we are just nagging or telling them something they already know.  Maybe this week, we could all try to be a little more patient and a little more intentional about our words.  Being patient may not be easy, but it will make you happier.  Being intentional with your words is also not easy, but really worth it when you see the change in your relationships.  Words are powerful.  Choose them wisely.

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, you are amazing and we love you.  We ask that you help us grow in patience.  Please help us to learn to be calm in difficult situations.  Help us to be patient with our loved ones.  Help us to guard our tongue and to hold back out words until the right moment.  Lord, help us discern waht needs to be said and what doesn’t.  Help us be more intentional with our words and to think before we speak.  Lord, we are so grateful that you are always with us.  We are also grateful that you are so forgiving as we mess up a lot.  We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow.  Have a blessed day!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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There Is More Than Just What You See

2 Kings 6:15-17 “When an attendant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. His servant said, “Alas, master! What shall we do?” He replied, “Do not be afraid, for there are more with us than there are with them.” Then Elisha prayed: “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw; the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”

The phrase I can’t get out of my head is “there are more with us than there are with them.”  This is something that can be hard to remember.  When God is on our side, no one can be greater than us.  1 John 4:4 says, “Little children, you are from God, and have conquered them; for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” The one who is in us is greater than the one who is in the world.  We should all write this down and put it on our fridge, on our bathroom mirror, everywhere, so that we can constantly be reminded of this.  Why is it so important that we remember this?  It is so important because so often it seems like we are in over our head.  It seems like our troubles are too much for us and we can’t keep our head above water. We frequently feel out numbered.

I love how the servant thought they were out numbered.  He had no idea what they were going to do and then Elisha prayed that God would open the eyes of the servant.  Then his eyes were opened and he saw the mountains were full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.  This is such a beautiful image.  Can you just see it?  A mountain full of horses and chariots of fire, Elisha was not worried about defeat when he could see the Lord’s army all around him.  How amazing it must have been for Elisha and for the servant.  I wonder if this was a one time thing for Elisha or if he always got to see things like this.  This passage makes me wonder about all the things that surround us that we can’t see.  It reassures me that even though sometimes we feel very alone, we never are.  God is always with us but we could also be surrounded with horses and chariots of fire, and we just don’t know because we can’t see them.

Did you know each one of us has a guardian angel?  Your have had your guardian angel since the moment you were born.  Have you ever asked your angel for anything?  Have you ever thanked it for all those things that it has saved you from?  Probably not because it was so good and saved you from it before you even knew it was a problem.  There is a short prayer that I used to pray with our boys when they were younger.  It is not just for little kids though.  It is a prayer that we can still say daily to let our guardian angel know that we know they are there and that we appreciate them and that we give them permission to work in our lives.  In case you do not know the prayer I will recite it for you now.

Angel of God my guardian dear to whom God’s love commits me here.

Ever this day be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen

This prayer is pretty great because it explains to us the job description of our angel.  Our guardian angel is here to help light our way.  It is here to guard us from any dangers.  It is here to help us get to heaven by helping to rule and guide us.  We have to accept its help though.  Angels will not go against free will any more than God will.  If you have never done this before take a quick minute and just let your guardian angel know that it has your full permission to work in your lives.  Give it free rein to do whatever it thinks is necessary to protect you, heart, mind and soul.  

Did you also know that God also has legions of angels?  Online it says that there are 9 different types of angels.  Each type of angel has a different job to do. I did not intend to make this episode an informational episode about angels, although I do find it fascinating and the more I read about them, the more I want to read.    The main point of today’s episode is to show you that you are never alone.  We can not see all those that surround us and I am sure that is for good reason.  Can you imagine what the world would be like if we could see all the spirits of the world?  If we could see all the good then we would probably see all the bad too.  I know there are evil spirits all around us, but I am glad that we can’t see them.  I can’t imagine it would be a good thing to be able to see that stuff.  However, when you feel like you are alone and abandoned know that you are not.  You have God, who is always with you.  You have your guardian angel, who is always with you.  Then there are also lots of other angels that can be by your side in a moment if you call upon them.  Aside from all these angels, there are also all the Saints up in heaven.  They are also praying for you and interceding for you.  I am not sure if they can physically be by your side of not, but they are definitely with you in spirit.  Especially all of your loved ones that have gone before you.  

Just because you can’t see the work that God is doing, doesn’t mean that he is not doing it.  When we are feeling alone or abandoned we can remember this verse.  He replied, “Do not be afraid, for there are more with us than there are with them.” Then Elisha prayed: “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw; the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”  If the Lord would send horses and chariots of fire for Elisha, he would send them for you too!  God will do whatever it takes to protect you and keep you safe.  I know sometimes we feel outnumbered and overpowered, but we are not.  Our God is greater than anything this world can throw at you.  You are not alone, you are surrounded by those that love you, even if you can’t see or feel them.  They are there!

Dear Heavenly Fathering I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, help us to not feel alone. Help us to remember to call upon your angels when we need them. Help us remember to give our guardian angel permission to work in our lives and help us to remember to thank them occasionally for all that they have done for us.  I am sure they do more than we know, they protect us from things we didn’t even know about.  Lord, we are so grateful that you send you angels to protect us just as you sent the horses and chariots of fire to protect Elisha.  We are sorry that we get angry sometimes when we can’t see what you are doing.  Help us to trust even when we can’t see.  Lord we love you and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you on Monday.  Have a blessed weekend!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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Our Own Justifications

Judges 21:25 & Judges 17:6 “ In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.”

These are some pretty powerful words.  In both cases, this sentence followed a description of how the people were going against the Lord and doing things that were evil.  In Judges 17 Micah steals money from his mom and when he decides to give it back to her she uses some of it to make a molten image and a graven image.  These are both used to worship false gods and they were strictly forbidden for Israelites.  In Judges 25 the men of Israel are trying to find wives for the Benjamites as they made a vow not to share their daughters with them.  Their solution was to go kill an entire village and kill men, woman & children.  The only ones they were to keep alive were the 400 virgins in that village.  After this they realized that these 400 girls were not going to be enough wives for all the men.  So, they told the Benjamites to hide and lie in wait and they can steal the wives and daughters of Shiloh.  Yet the men of Israel would not be to blame because they did not give these women freely, they were stolen.  

It is so crazy that anyone would think this is ok.  It really makes you wonder what kind of a world they were living in where they might think this was a good idea.  It also goes to show that they really have no idea who God is or what He truly wants.  How could they think that God would think this was acceptable behavior? It’s as if they believe that God doesn’t really care about people he just cares about the law.  If they can uphold the law, according to the letter of the law not the spirit of the law, then all is ok.  No harm done.  It seems so crazy to me.  It seems crazy and yet I can see how we struggle with this same thing.  I was just about to say that we are not stealing peoples wives and daughters, but that is not true.  Some people are still doing this today.  It is estimated that between 15,000 to 50,000 women and children are forced into sexual slavery in the United States every year, and this number is pretty conservative as other research shows numbers being much higher.  Even if we are not talking about actually kidnapping, what about those men or woman that steal a spouse away from their partner or their children.  One estimate from the journal of Marriage and Divorce concludes that a mindblowing 70% of married Americans cheat at least once in their marriage.  This is insane.  What is going on in our culture, what was going on in their culture?

I think the answer can be found in the verse.  “ In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.”  What this verse is telling us is that the Israelites had no one to over see them.  There was no one to direct them as to what was right and wrong.  Now, they did have the tablets from God.  They had all those years of instruction from Moses and then from Joshua.  It is not as if they can claim that they didn’t know what the Lord expected from them.  He gave them very detailed instructions through Moses and Joshua.  However, there was no king.  They no longer had that one person who was the clear leader.  Because of this they each did what was right in their own eyes.  They each decided for themselves what was right and what was wrong.  Does this sound familiar?  Have you ever heard the term relativism?  Relativism is the belief that there's no absolute truth, only the truths that a particular individual or culture happen to believe.  

I had not heard of this term before I went on a retreat and I wasn’t aware that it was a thing.  However, when I look at the world I can see that relativism is everywhere.  When I first heard of it, I didn’t see the danger of it.  That all seemed perfectly reasonable to me.  You believe what you believe and I believe what I believe.  What could be wrong with that?  However, I can now see that the problem is that it’s not accurate.  There are universal truths in the world and if we pretend that their aren’t we are doing everyone a disservice.  There are things that are right and wrong.  Things that are wrong, not just because of one’s religion, but because they are harmful to people.  For instance, bullying others is wrong.  Mistreating others is wrong.  Having an affair with someone in a relationship is wrong.  These are all things that cause pain to others.  Somehow we convince ourselves that we aren’t doing anything wrong.  For instance, when we are picking on someone else we might think, he deserves it because he is not nice to others, or we were picked on so we think it is ok to pick on others.  I have heard people justify affairs because they no longer loved their spouse, or their spouse wasn’t nice to them.  We tend to be really good at justifying our behaviors.  I don’t think this is very different from the people of the old testament.  They found all sorts of excuses why their behaviors weren’t that bad.  They justified the things that they were doing too.  

Have you ever found yourself doing something that you knew was wrong and yet you convinced yourself that it was ok because of some reason or another?  It might have been something big or maybe it was something small.  Maybe that was your justification, well, this is just a small thing, God won’t mind.  Have you ever found yourself doing something in such a way that you might be upholding the letter of the law, but you know you have broken the spirit of the law. What I think of when I think of this is trying to find loopholes in the various commandments.  For instance, when I was younger I was babysitting and two of my older sisters stopped by to visit.  We were joking around and they asked what we could do for fun.  They said, what were the exact instructions of your parents and then we talked about all the things we could do that they didn’t explicitly tell us we couldn’t do.  For instance, they didn’t say, don’t go play in traffic, or don’t play with matches.  It was understood when they said stay safe, but we were trying to see how we could technically follow their instructions and still be mischievous.  Have you ever done this with God?  Have you ever tried to skirt around His rules or do something that is more in the grey area?

I think if we all think about it we can think of times when we have done this.  We might miss mass, but tell ourselves that it is ok because our children had a sports event, or we were really busy.  Maybe we eat meat on Friday during lent but convince ourselves that God doesn’t mind because someone invited us out to dinner and the place was known for their steak.  We justify many things we do and actually I feel as though more and more, we don’t even feel like we need to justify it.  It seems like we are all just doing what we want to do because we want to do it, and that is justification enough.  We either don’t even consider what God would think, or we think, he would want me to be happy.  Guess what?  God does want us to be happy, that is why he gave us directions on how to live.  He knows that the things we would desire to make us happy, don’t in fact make us happy, we just think they will.  For instance, we think eating a whole cake will make us happy, so we do. Then we feel sick to our stomaches and we start to feel bad about ourselves for not showing self control.  We think we will be happy if start seeing this married person because he/she is nice and they really like us.  Then we find ourselves feeling guilty and having to tell lies all the time and we actually feel terrible.  

If we want to be happy we have the blueprint.  God has laid it out in front of us.  We just need to follow it.  We need to start putting God and what He wants in front of ourselves and what we want.  Why is it we think that if we follow God’s ways we will miss out on something?  Why do we think that the way of the world will be better than God’s way?  Have we not see the destruction that is going on in the world?  Have we not seen how miserably unhappy so many people are today?  It is your choice, you can choose to follow the Lord or not.  In Joshua 24:15 it says, “But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”  No matter which you choose, be honest with yourself.  Don’t justify the bad things you are doing and try to make them ok.  There are universal truths and God is going to hold you to them.  

Dear Heavenly Father, please bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord we are sorry for all the ways we offend you.  We are sorry for justifying our unjust and awful behavior.  We are sorry for choosing hte things of this world over the ways you want us to live.  We want to follow you Lord.  We want to be your faithful followers, please help us.  Help us to see the ways in which we are doing things that are wrong and just using excuses to justify them.  Change our hearts Lord, soften them and help lead us to the right decisions.  Convict us of the things we need to change.  We love you Lord, you are so amazing! We are grateful for all you do for us and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.

Thank you for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow.  Have a blessed day!

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www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

REGISTER FOR THE RETREAT HERE!

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

CLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring 

CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emails

CLICK HERE to sign up for free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily life

CLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace