Richard wasn’t so sure he wanted to jump into the massive waterfall, it looked like a sure suicide jump and he wasn’t ready for that.  Instead he looked for a place on the edge he could go wading first.  Get his feet wet and paddle around a little.  He noticed a crowd of people in the distance who appeared to be playing at the edge of the water. He turned away from the edge of the waterfall and started to walk to the safety area.  He heard the voice whisper behind him, “Come back, we will jump together, I will give you the power to overcome your fear.”  But, fear propelled Richard forward towards the other people who apparently had common sense just like he did.

He joined the group of people splashing in the shallow pool.  It was fun at first getting to know the others, but after a few hours boredom set in.  Playing in the shallow pool wasn’t as exhilarating as he had anticipated and he felt the heights of the mountains calling him again.  By now the rain and clouds had disappeared and he could see the top of the mountain he had set out to reach.  He said good-bye to his new friends and set out to conquer the mountain.

The voice whispered in his ear; You are my hearts desire, walk with Me and be My  happiness.  I will be your joy and peace.  Stay with Me and My light will surround you and show you the way.  I will send you showers of blessing and truth, they will quench your thirst when you cross the desert.  Keep your eyes on the goal, but don’t race ahead of Me.  Stay close and let My arms surround you with love, joy, and peace.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Romans 15:13

Brett has recently adopted a sugar-free, grain-free diet for a month.  This has drastically changed the way he eats and I spend more time with my blender since he now drinks a smoothie for breakfast every morning.

I know when I explain the following situation the solution will seem obvious, but please bear with me and my idiosyncracies.  I have put my blender, juicer, and the coffee maker on the cupboard to the right of the sink, they feel right there, but I only have two outlets close enough to plug anything in.  That means that every morning when I switch between the blender and the juicer, I have to switch plugs.  It’s been a good 10 days by now and I’m sure I have forgotten every morning to switch the plug before I try turn on the needed appliance.  I am becoming incredibly frustrated with my lack of ability to remember to plug-in my juicer or blender before I try to turn it on.

When I become unplugged from God, it takes an effort to remember to plug myself back into Him.  But, unless I’m plugged into Him, I can’t operate the way He designed me to.  He may have created me to make juice, or He may have gifted me with the ability to blend fruit into smoothies, but unless I plug-in I’ll just sit there doing nothing.  I am powerless to do what God created me to do unless I have His power flowing through me.

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, He will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.  John 15:5

Richard took a deep breath and stepped out of the cave into the rain.  The only way to finish the journey was to keep on walking.  He sludged on through the mud and rain wondering when the storm would end and he would see the sun again.  His shoes squished and his wet clothes stuck to him like white cat hair on a black sweater.  He longed for the warmth of the sunshine and the opportunity to dry out.   The path narrowed and branches scratched his face and arms.  He tripped and fell into an open clearing.  A massive waterfall stretched across the horizon , the falling waters enraged by the downpour.  The power of the waterfall was both terrifying and mesmerizing.  He walked closer, careful not to get too close to the edge.  He didn’t want to fall into the swirling waters below.

The now familiar voice spoke at his side again; My love is like a mighty rushing waterfall.  Let go of your fear of commitment to Me and jump in.  You will be overcome, overwhelmed, and pummeled with My love.  The power of the rushing water will send you to the deep.  When you resurface you will be amazed at the beauty surrounding you.  You will be amazed at how much everything has changed now that you are immersed in My love for you.  Suddenly the rugged mountains won’t be so hard to climb and the deep valleys won’t be so dark with clouds.  For when My love surrounds you, your world becomes a different place, you see everything from My perspective.  My love is simple, it changes you.  It changes your eyesight.  It changes your actions.  It changes your attitude.  It simply changes everything.  Once your heart has been changed by My love, everything around it changes also.

Dear friends, let us love on another as God loves us.  Such loves comes only from Him.  Everyone who has genuine love for others has been born again and knows God.  Anyone who doesn’t love others doesn’t really know God, because God is love.  This is how God showed His love for us, by sending His only Son to this world so we might have eternal life.  It’s by looking at Calvary that we really see what love is all about.  It was God’s love for us that sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends if Go so loved us so much, we really ought to love each other.  1 John 4:7-11 (The Clear Word)

Richard found himself shivering inside the mouth of a dark cave in order to stay out of the downpour.  He shuddered to think what else he shared the cave with, but decided it was better to be in the cave than outside getting wet.  He accessed his situation.  He had wanted to reach the top of the mountain before dark, but the rain had created a muddy, slippery path.  He winced thinking about the fall that nearly sent him over the edge, he had managed to pull himself back up, but had dropped his backpack down the deep ravine to lighten his weight enough to save himself from the same fate as his backpack.

He heard a voice behind him and turned to see where it came from, but it was too dark to see more than a foot inside the cave; “Rise up and walk in My power.  Lift up My name, wear it as a shield around you.  Some days the path you walk will be paved with gold, your days filled with sunshine and blue skies.  Other days will be so dark you can’t see anything.  Listen to My voice and let your heart follow me through the darkness.  When you reach the light you will see where I was in the dark.  Soak up the strength of the light of My presence.  Learn to recognize My voice in the clear light of day and you will be able to follow it in the dark even if it just a whisper in the roaring wind that surrounds you, seeking to destroy you.  Your part is to listen, hear and walk towards My voice. I will always be there, My love, guiding you daily through what seems to be endless nights into endless sunshine.

I will rain down My Spirit on you so that you may walk in My power.  Now is the time to put away the umbrella, walk out of the shelter you stand in and get soaked in the life changing power of the Spirit.  The power of My Spirit will propel you forward.  The flashes of lightning are truth on the darkness.  Sometimes the rain of the Holy Spirit is gentle and refreshing other times the downpour is meant to cleanse your soul of the impurities that can’t remain.  The apparent harshness of the storm will encourage you to hold onto Me.  Open the door of your heart and let the gentleness of the Spirit in.  When My Spirit is in you it doesn’t matter what your surroundings are.  True happiness and joy are yours.”

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  Philippians 4:12

If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you.  Proverbs 1:23

Richard stepped out of the forest and saw a beautiful panorama before him.  He soaked in the view of deep valleys with trickeling streams, high mountains that appeared insurmountable and the beautiful clearings between them.  He heard a voice speak beside him; The high mountains will be difficult to climb, but the effort to reach the top will be worth much.  The valleys will be just as hard to navigate, but when you climb out of the valley into the restful clearing you will appreciate it so much more.  Your life is beautiful even with the low valleys and the seemingly insurmountable mountains.

Peace surrounded Richard as the voice continued; Stay on the path.  Sometimes you think that you can’t see Me, but I am just ahead clearing the way before you.  Wait patiently for Me to clear your path of obstacles too hard for you to move.  Enjoy the wait, and spend the time learning about Me.  Refresh your feet in the cool waters and eat the fruit provided to increase your strength.  I am almost done clearing the path before you.

“The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need. He lets me rest in green meadows; He leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to His name. Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for You are close beside me. Your rod and staff protect and comfort me. You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings. Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalm 23

Richard graduated from the eighth grade and moved onto high school.  After four years of high school he graduated and went to college.  After four years of college he graduated and got a job.

Now you may think the above paragraph only makes sense and is pretty mundane.  But, think about it.  Richard didn’t graduate from eighth grade and go back to kindergarten.  He didn’t graduate from high school and go back to ninth grade.  He didn’t graduate from college and go back to being a freshman again.  No, he got a job and continued to move forward in life.

It is a simple concept, to keep moving forward in life.  But, if your experience has been anything like mine, you have found how easy it is to become stuck in a rut and feel like you are going nowhere.  In fact, I think one of Satan’s most successful ploys to throw us off track is to simply make us so comfortable where we are at that we resist change or moving forward.  Sometime, maybe even most of the time, God has to work things so we are uncomfortable to get us off our complacent behinds and keep moving.  Our level of resistance to His prodding is directly proportional to how miserable He allows us to become.  I think He gets a bad wrap for that at times.  But God is far more interested in keeping us moving towards Him than making us comfortable.

Every day God accepts us just where we are…He just loves us too much to let us stay there.

So if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.  John 8:36

Brett needed just a few more items to finish the jib he started building a few days ago.  We decided Lowes would be the perfect place to pick up the needed items.  Brett and our Chinese student went to hunt for the needed items while Aspen and I wandered off to peruse the greenery.  I picked up a plant on sale to replace one that had recently died.

Aspen spied an outdoor two seater swing and convinced me to swing with her.  We swang and swang and swang some more.  Aspen shared her wisdom and said, “Isn’t it relaxing to swing and waste all your problems?”  I laughed and agreed with her.  I expected a text from Brett any moment telling me they were finished and ready to go, but the text never came.  I finally convinced Aspen we should go find Daddy.

We wandered down to the other end of the store, checking each aisle we passed.  Finally we found him trying to find just the right screws to hold the jib onto the tripod.  We waited for him, but Aspen finally gave up and we wandered off to look at seeds, books and magazines.  Aspen picked up a children’s book with a small built-in keyboard and I picked up a book about outdoor landscaping.  We sat down in a prearranged patio display and perused our books while waiting for Brett.

I watched a petite woman come in the front doors pushing a large cart.  She stopped by the large bags of pellet fuel and started to put them onto her cart.  Several people passed by, but no one offered to help her.  Then I saw two tall women approach the woman.  The older woman said, “Why hon, would you look at that poor woman, give her some help.”  The younger of the two women stepped over and offered to help her move the bags onto her cart.  She lifted a few onto the cart for her and the other woman told her she didn’t need any more.  The helpful woman asked if she was sure and the petite woman replied that she was just getting a few to try them out.  The two women, satisfied that they had helped someone out, continued to push their cart through the store.  They hadn’t gone far when the petite woman started lifting more bags onto the cart.  She had the cart about half full when a male store clerk walked up and asked her if she needed any help.  She insisted that she didn’t and continued to load more bags onto her cart.

It seemed ridiculous to me that she insisted on lifting the heavy bags herself when she had been offered help twice.  But, it doesn’t make any more sense for me to insist on earning my salvation rather than accepting the free grace of God.  When I insist on trying to save myself I am telling God that I don’t believe He can save me.  I am telling Him that I believe I am  as powerful as He is, after all that is the only way I can save myself.  But, that is a lie.  Jeremiah 10:6 says “LORD, there is no one like you! For You are great, and Your name is full of power.”   And Hebrews 9:27-28, “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  John 3:16

Like most politically correct cell phone users I turn my phone to vibrate or off when I go to church or the library.  The only problem with this practice is that I generally forget to take it out of my purse when I get home.  Then I miss phone calls and messages until I either go to bed and remember to fish it out of my purse or  I don’t remember it until the next morning and it sits in my purse overnight, usually running down the battery and turning itself off.

I’ve decided I like the good old-fashioned phones that just got put into one place and didn’t get moved.  They didn’t get lost and you pretty much always heard them ring.  Also they didn’t have batteries that died, they just plugged into the wall and worked unless the phone lines went down or the electricity went off.

Our relationship to God can be compared to our cellphones.  We can completely turn ourselves off from what He has to say to us and miss important communication from Him.  We do notice His absence when the phone is missing and we need to make a phone call.  Then when we are in trouble we search for Him until we find Him.  Sometimes we turn the sound back on, other times we just use it and then just leave it turned off.

We live about a third of a mile from the school where Brett works.  But we have such poor cell reception in this area we usually can’t carry on a phone conversation without having our call dropped.  There is one place in the house where I get the best reception and if I want a decent conversation that is where I sit.  If I get up to walk around, I will lose reception.  I once talked to my youngest son on the phone for about thirty minutes and we lost reception five or six times.  I need to have a good connection to God so that my communication with Him won’t be dropped due to lack of good reception on my part.

Our cell phones allow us to give our favorite people their own ring tones so we know who is calling without even looking.  I do that for the five important people in my life,  my husband, my sister and my three adult children….Aspen isn’t old enough to have a phone of her own yet.  If God literally had a cell number we could call Him at would I  feel close enough to Him to give Him His own ring tone?

I text people on a regular basis, but in our family nobody texts as much as my youngest son who is a junior in college this year.  His texts amount to several thousand per month!  I was shocked when I saw the number of texts he was making.  If I could literally text God, how many texts would be flying back and forth between us?  What would His texts say to me?

Unfortunately I can’t literally text God.  But, He certainly has plenty of texts for me.  All I have to do is pick up the Bible and read them.  He sends us texts about how much He loves us, how to make good choices, how to be happy.  They are all there just waiting to be read by us!  We don’t usually ignore our phone texts unless we want to avoid the person who sent it to us.  Let’s treat God with the same love He shows us and not only read the texts He sends us, but send some back to Him in appreciation for everything He has done for us.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow–not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.  No power in the sky above or in the earth below–indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8:38-39

I double checked my list and decided I had everything I needed from Costco.  I pushed my cart to the front of the store where I usually use the self-checkout line.  But, this time I noticed a couple of checkers had no one in their line so I pushed my cart up to one and started unload my 10# bags of carrots onto the conveyor belt.  I saw a man breeze on by me with a bouquet of flowers.  My mind registered that he was going to check out ahead of me!  I was just a little flabbergasted at his rudeness, but I chose not to say anything since he only had one bunch of flowers.  He clumsily pulled a single rose from his bouquet of a dozen and gave it to the clerk.  I listened as he droned on about why his wife had requested that he never give her a bouquet with a dozen roses and how every time he buys her roses he gives one to the clerk who checks him out.  He appeared to be in his fifties and I was a little amazed that he had managed to stay married to the same woman for so many years.  The clerk appreciated her flower as she was a middle-aged woman who was not in a relationship and would not be receiving flowers from anyone this Valentines Day.  When the man heard her story he said, “See, there is a God.”  The clerk agreed, “Yes, there is a God.” 

In the meantime, while I had no real issue with letting the man go ahead of me as he only had one item, (even though he spent enough time talking to have checked through a half cart full of items,)  I did wonder where the God in this man’s life went as he rudely blew past me without acknowledging my presence to check out ahead of me. 

It did remind me though how many times I have left God behind as I do what I want to do at the moment.  Just like the man with the bouquet of flowers obviously felt he had good reasons for cutting in line in front of me, I breeze right past God as He tries His best to get my attention and tell me not to fall for the sin that I am so single mindedly pursuing. 

It’s so easy to explain away my many small indulges in sin and feel pretty good about not committing any really big, bad sins.  But, in the end it’s all sin, big or small.  Seen or not.  Every time I give into my selfish desires over the desires God has for me it’s like piling up one small shovel full of dirt at a time.  Eventually all my little sins create a bigger pile of dirt than one or two big shovelfuls of dirt.

“Let the Holy Spirit direct your lives, and you won’t care about satisfying the desires of your sinful nature.  The desires of our human nature and the desires of the Holy Spirit are in conflict with each other.  They’re like two powerful forces pulling in opposite directions, so you can’t always depend on what you feel as being the right thing to do.” ( Galatians 5:16,17 The Clear Word)

Today was Valentines day.  Appropriately, and without effort, I spent the day thinking about my amazing and beautiful wife who is far too good to me, way more than I deserve.  I know there is a God who loves me because He brought her into my life.  Now, before you think I’m simply going to gush on and on here, which I could, let me tell you what the title of the post means.

I spent all day today working on building a jib.  I know I said I spent all day thinking about my wife, and both are true.  First, let me tell you what a “jib” is.  It’s a cinematic tool used for shooting film/video.  Imagine your watching a movie and the scene on your 60 inch plasma screen (or whatever you watch movies on) is of a house and street in an upper middle class American neighborhood.  It’s a high shot looking down on a house.  Suddenly, the scene magically moves smoothly from high to low following a car that has turned into the driveway and you are now looking street level at the house.  More than likely that kind of shot was accomplished using a jib.

Now I am not trying to become a Hollywood film maker…yet.  But I have committed to shooting a movie here at the academy this spring break with the drama team.  A big reason I’m doing this is my wife, specifically her faith in God and me.  It’s very likely that, without Miranda in my life, I would not be doing this.  But she’s excited about it and that makes me excited about it.  I have many discouraging thoughts of doubt and feelings of being in over my head, but I have committed to doing this and a big part of that is tied to, well, honestly to impress my wife.  I want to live up to the faith she seems to have in my film making abilities.

So, today I embarked on something of an odd Valentines day present.  I was going to build my own, Do-It-Yourself, homemade jib.  I researched and researched till I found what I thought was a good plan I could follow.  I went to Home Depot, explained my project to a somewhat bewildered but intrigued worker, and together we secured all the parts I would need.  He made me promise to bring back pictures when I was done. I think he didn’t believe I would actually be able to construct anything recognizable let alone useful.

This morning I laid out all the pieces and began.  On a side note, we have a teen age boy from China staying with us this break.  We are his “sponsor family” meaning we take care of him while he is at school here.  He doesn’t speak great English.  Smiling and nodding is a major portion of his communication.  When I got started on the project he apparently interpreted either a smile or a nod as an invitation to help, though he had no idea what I was building.  So here I am building a home-made Hollywood cinematic piece of equipment with instructions I got off the internet and a Chinese boy who smiles and nods in response to every question as an assistant.  I won’t bore you with all the details of everything that went wrong today, but the list is long indeed.  Needless to say I did not finish my labor of love.  I have left it in a pile on the coffee table as a monument to my failure.  My Chinese assistant looked at the pile of aluminum tubing, angle iron, nuts and bolts on the table, then looked at me, nodded and left…no smile.

I don’t know if I can express clearly my thoughts and feelings here.  Yes, I was making a piece of equipment that I would be using for making my film, yet I felt that I was doing it for Miranda.  No, not the same things as when guys go out and buy power tools for their wives on Valentines, I really was thinking of her the entire time I was working and how pleased and proud of me she would be when it was done.  I wanted to do this as a gift in response to her inspiration and faith in me, although, at the end of the day, what I had was more of a modern art expression of Armageddon.

Well, I was pretty devastated.  My valentine gift was a pile of metal garbage.  It made me feel like human garbage and unworthy of her faith in my abilities.  Somewhere in that mire of despair a still small voice pricked my ears and said, “This is kind of like you and I, isn’t it?”  I’ve come to recognize those kinds of thoughts as God trying to tell me something.  I looked at my aluminum Picasso pile and thought, that’s my righteousness, good work, whatever you want to call it, that’s my life when I try to do things on my own.  This is the result when I try to impress God with my abilities.  And you know what’s weird?  I could feel God there with me looking at my mess with a smile and saying, “Well, what do you say we try again tomorrow, and this time let me help”…and He wasn’t talking about my jib project.

Isn’t that the most awesome God?  Whatever mess we might make of our lives, however bad we might do in a day, God doesn’t condemn us but always extends us the offer, “Let’s try again tomorrow, and this time let Me help.”  I have a feeling Miranda might do the same for me and my ‘Jib of love.”

“For God did not come into the world to condemn the world, but to save it…” John 3:17