I was Running Low on Ammo when I got to Church ...

Well...

Confession is good for the soul, right?

So I confess that I knew that title would grab your attention!

And, yes. Yes! Confession is good for the soul. It forces us to live honestly. It forces us to live on purpose. It forces us to live our lives like we really mean it. 

Please don't ever let anyone tell you that God doesn't have a sense of humor. I wrote my last post (Should We Stockpile Ammo?) a couple weeks before it actually made its debut; how was I to know that when I re-read it, God would use my very own words to bring conviction to my heart? 

Not funny, God! 

Actually, it did make me laugh. Caught red-handed. 

Let's see ... now where was I? 

Oh, that's right. 

I was running low on ammo when I got to church [click here to read the post :) ], and instead of paying attention to Pastor's message, I was forming a plan of attack on the clutter that is currently holding my home hostage. 

• We are going to clean out that room, deal with the boxes of "stuff" that reside there, reclaim our living space. 
• We are going to clean out our closets.
• We are going to clean the kitchen cupboards out. 

The din of my racing thoughts was deafening. 

But eventually the Spirit of God began to penetrate the clamor, and my spirit responded to His ministrations. Maybe it was the worship music. Maybe it was the Spirit calming the savage beast of perfection that raged within. Maybe it was just my Father in His great mercy, reaching out His hand to steady me.  

Let's see. What had I written in that earlier post? 

The more of His word that we have hidden in our arsenal ... in our hearts ... the more weapons we have available to us to address whatever assault the enemy has cooked up to turn our life upside down. 

Just whose words had I been listening to that morning? 

You are a failure. 
You are inadequate. 
You mess up everything. 

Oh, yes ... those would be the words of the enemy. The words of a liar bent on stealing my peace, bent on destroying my true identity as a daughter of the King, and determined to kill my joy. 

Whenever I am unsettled, I have noticed an unhealthy pattern. Instead of sitting with God and asking Him what He wants me to learn in the midst of my unrest, I want to DO SOMETHING! By getting busy "doing," it seems I feel convinced that I have worth, promise, and potential. So my natural tendency is to get Bound Under Satan's Yoke, performing to prove something, rather than recalling the truth of God's word that tells me who I am in Him. If I would simply speak that truth to myself, it would expose the lie and bring instant peace. 

In the spirit of confession, Thanksgiving Day was a two-week celebration in our family this year. Nothing at all wrong with that; we ought to be giving thanks every day, right? No, the confession is in the reality that when we are caught up in having company and pulled from our usual routine, I often don't make the time I need to for God in my life. 

Right about here is where there needs to be a warning label. (The genius of this photo will be lost on those too young to remember the television show Lost in Space, but I couldn't resist.)

In busy times like these, I acknowledge Him, but I'm not sitting in His presence the way I need to be in order to stockpile ammo, to keep myself steeped in His words of life. I find that I'm often trying to live on yesterday's manna. 

Living on yesterday's manna is never a good thing. People are like tires with a nail in them; or like helium balloons several days past their prime. The truth of the matter is that we leak. We can take great care to keep ourselves filled with the Holy Spirit, but this is a daily endeavor; if we don't refresh our supply, we will run low on ammo. 

As long as I'm confessing here, I might as well give you the full monty. In all long-term relationships, you know that there will be those days when things just don't seem "right" between you and your loved one. That particular Sunday, my sweet husband and I were dealing with a repetitive struggle, a certain concern that arises every so often between us, especially at times when I allow my spiritual tank to leak. Each time this particular issue surfaces, we share our hearts and our thoughts, but we still seem to come away without full resolution. Things improve each time we tread the pathways of this challenge, but the fact remains that we still have a ways to go. 

Instead of focusing on the positives, the fact that we get closer and closer to full resolution each time we reach this place in our relationship, that Sunday I was full of frustration and self-condemnation. I was irritated at him and at myself. I ended up in church, but I wasn't worshiping my Lord. No, I was steeped in bondage, at least until the Holy Spirit was able to shine some light into the darkness and remind me to use my ammo; to remind me to speak truth to the lie and be freed; to stop the enemy in his lying, cheating tracks.

Hubby and I sorted everything out as the day progressed, and as I prayed and reflected the next day, I told God how very blessed I am to be His daughter and Wayne's wife. In fact, I can say without doubt that my husband is the one of the best things that has ever happened to me. God gently whispered in my ear: 

Tell him, then. And live like you mean it. 

Stop living as if you have a choice; spiritual warfare is not an option in the Christian life. Put your fatigues on and get back in the war. 

By the way, take all your ammo. 

Putting my Money Where my Mouth is...

The name of this blog is Dare to Share. So now I'm going to put my money where my mouth is. I'm going to take a giant leap of faith... 

Let me digress for a minute. You may have noticed the picture up above ... that's me atop a 30+ feet-tall pole, attempting to perch atop a teeny, tiny board ... preparing to take a leap for the bar that's extended in front of me. I may hit that bar, or I might miss it. Either way, those harnesses that they put around my chest and my hips are going to catch me in my fall. I am safe. At least that's what they told me before I climbed that pole...

And they were telling me the truth! But for me to find that out for myself, I had to take the leap and test the harnesses. 

This event took place at the Outdoor Wilderness Learning Center, in Dubach, LA. We celebrated our daughter-in-law's birthday there at the end of October. 

As I reflected on my time atop that pole in the days that followed, God reminded me of what my husband told me the day after the event: "I've never loved you more than I did when I saw you up there on top of that pole." That love wasn't based on externals. It was based on his knowing that I was facing my fears, and that I was willing to learn to trust. God showed me that our faith in Him is just like that. He is crazy about us from the start, but His love is kindled anew when He sees us facing our fears, trusting Him to prove Himself ever faithful to us in each circumstance that comes our way. When we leap forward in faith, He is that harness that will catch us and carry us forward. We might hit the intended mark, or we might fail and have to try again; either way, we are not on our own. He is right by our side, carrying us through. I call it "living in the leap"!

Okay, so I've avoided it long enough. I said I was going to put my money where my mouth was. Here goes: 

When I first wrote Worth Every Tear, I had aspirations of setting the world on fire! I would bring hope to countless families battling with wayward children. While there is nothing wrong with desiring to help others, my motives were not as pure as I imagined. It wasn't just a desire to help, but a desire to prove myself to God, to earn His favor by showing Him what I could do for Him. 

Aren't I grand? Aren't You glad You saved me? 

Yuck!

Ugh!

Sickens me to admit it, and I'm not sure I even recognized it until recently.

But confession is good for the soul, right?

So move onward a few years. What am I doing for God now? It has to be something big right? Well, at least that's the lie I bought into. Part of the challenge of living in this world is not to be of this world, and the world measures success by how important something seems to be, how significant... how big... how expensive... So our Western culture teaches us, anyhow. We are supposed to Think Big! 

I've spent the last couple years wondering What Now? The book is complete. I'm back in the workforce. Homeschooling is a thing of the past. Who am I now? What am I doing for God now? And I wasn't able to come up with anything that seemed good enough, big enough, important enough... 

I believe that's because my focus was still on me and not Him. Earlier this year, He pulled me up short and told me to STOP! He needed to get my attention. I wrote about it several days ago: Are you BUSY too?

In the past four months, God has radically changed the way I perceive many things. He's shown me that I don't have to earn His favor; I already have it. He's shown me that I don't have to make things happen; He's got it all under control. He's shown me that I don't have to understand everything He is up to ... I just need to trust that He is up to good things, especially when I don't understand! 

Recently, a friend posted something on Facebook that has totally reshaped how I view ministry. It is worth reading: Click here. 

What I do for God doesn't have to be a great big thing. No, I can do the smallest thing from a pure heart, and my GREAT BIG God will use it for His glory and for the good of all who are touched by it. 

All that's required of me is to focus on my relationship with Him, spend time getting to know Him better and better. As I learn to hear His still, small voice more and more clearly, in the midst of the chaos of the world, and as I obey without worrying, trusting Him to "catch me if I fall," He will make a difference. I simply need to live ready, and leave the results in His hands. 

So be encouraged today! Your leap of faith may be to smile at the next person you pass in the grocery store. Or it may be to leave a $100 tip to a waitress, as my friend did. Or whatever God whispers to your spirit. Just be ready to obey and leave the results to Him.

Today, He told me to share what He has been teaching me, so I have put my money where my mouth is and "dared to share." The results are up to Him. 

Learning to live in the leap (of faith) is setting me free from performance and perfectionism. There's room on my perch! Join me today!

God bless you!