Is it that we have too much? Or is it that we don’t have enough?

What is it that keeps us from realizing we already have the greatest possession we could ever long for, hope for, dream to possess.

And that gift is right there inside of us.

My quiet time this morning included a message of Jesus breathing the Spirit upon his disciples, John 20:19-21. How incredible it is to be made known of the reality that we, as a people, did not always possess this great gift of being equipped with the Spirit inside us. That was what Pentecost was all about. It was the pouring out of the Spirit upon all of God’s people, those then and those to come.

So there it is, God’s gifting us with His very Spirit. What is it that keeps us from realizing it, remembering it, living like it is true?

As I questioned before, is it that we have too much? Are we distracted by the worldly objects around us, seemingly content and naively not needing the Spirit? Is it that we are constantly striving for more, never content and therefore distracted by an insatiable need for what we don’t have?

Either complex is a distraction away from our equipment of the Spirit. He is the One we need to carry on through the day, to experience a peace that comes from His constant presence, to live a life of example by words and deeds that others may know there is something different about us, something they have always been longing for and just unaware of how to find.

When the world gets in the way of the great reality of holding the Spirit inside us, we leave the power He has to offer us by the wayside. The Spirit is peace, strength, comfort, guidance, wisdom,…God, Himself.

How could we allow anything to stand in the way of that?
How could we want anything else for our lives?

2 Corinthians 12:9

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

I have heard this verse many a time, have meditated on its significance. However, I don’t know if I have ever taken to heart a truth behind it that is not so readily seen. Christ promises to be our strength when we are weak. So in that time, we will be weak; He will be our strength. Those are seemingly the components of His promise.

But there is far more to it. Yes, we will have strength given us when we are weak, but that means in our times of weakness, quite literally we will be strengthened, made strong. We will not be weak. The temporariness of our weakness dependent upon our willingness to rely on Christ’s replacement of it with His strength.

Christ’s empowerment of us is not equivalent each day. He does not have some standardized allotment that our days of greater challenge will supercede and make His given strength insignificant. God knows beforehand our days that will be more challenging; those are the days He places more of His power, His strength, at our disposal. But the key to this is that it is offered, it is available for our use, to be empowerment according to what each of our days will contain as foreseen by the Lord.

God is an “accordingly” God - accordingly:

Everything is according to His plan. We are His according to His divine Grace. He empowers us according to our need with what we are facing that day, that hour, that moment.

And would it not be fair for His empowerment of us to be contingent upon our willingness to depend on Him?! How can we take advantage of all that is offered if we are not willing? The offer is there, His strength and power ready to be ours in our times of challenge.

“Look to Me for all that you need, and watch to see what I will do.” - Jesus Calling

Oftentimes I have heard reference to “Divine Appointment” - a time that God had predetermined by His good and gracious will to carry out His holy and perfect plan.

But what happens when a divine appointment is not so readily received by us? Whether based on current circumstances, a comfortable life or any number of provisions of present comfort, “appointment” can come to be seen more so as “interruption”. Is it our perspective that makes it so? There we are, completely content with the way things are, and then suddenly something unexpected is thrown our way.

When God calls us down a completely different path than the one we’re on, how do we react? What is our response? Are we so less likely to believe that something is His divine appointment merely because it holds “undesirables” as decidedly determined by ourselves? Why do we believe God uses only the anticipated, only the comfortable, only the easy to achieve His plans?

Perhaps we need to be able to redefine “interruptions”, and examine them to see if God’s hand is in it. As the writer of my quiet time this morning so eloquently put it, to see “if there is something divine in which He is inviting me to partake.”

Responding as God would likely desire me to in result of the unexpected is one of my greatest struggles. I am such a controller, such a planner, and His appointments in my life are not always those already on my agenda or to-do list. That’s when I have a hard time having an open mind.

But this message today holds such truth. It is all a trusting of God with His plan, an acceptance of His divine invitation to “experience Him and be part of His plans in ways you might not expect.”

Our point of view is very much a result of a trusting in the Lord or not. But it is that trust which allows us to yield ourselves to His bountiful knowledge and goodness to submit to His working in our lives. When I face the unexpected, may I have the renewed mindset of seeing all of God’s workings as divine appointments rather than a worldly frustration viewing them as interruption.

Yielding sometimes means coming to a full stop before being able to proceed on to the next course. May we use these opportunities in life as we would in the laws of traffic - come to a slow, identify what is in the plane of field, and trust truth over instinct, even if it means stopping completely before heading onward.

“Will you yield your plan for His today?”

*reference from Encouragement for Today, October 28, 2011

One day I was walking briskly to my textile class, obviously because I was running a bit late. The familiar surroundings of this particular walk I blazed seamlessly past, focused on quickening my strides and making larger steps.

Not typically giving a second glance to the sea of people in my midst, I was nearly “knocked in the face” by a completely unexpected sight. There was a boy with a hoodie pulled up over his head, backpack on, duct tape on the backpack for viewers to see written: Need Prayer.

Can you say hit straight to the heart?! Wow! What a wakeup call that was! Here is this guy, this person I am coexisting with, who was hearkening to others for prayerful aid. I wonder how many people actually offered up a prayer for the man…what sadness there is to think how few there probably were.

This got me thinking, though. Not to say that we don’t, in a sense, need prayer; but it moved me to think, we don’t need prayer like we need Christ. Today’s Jesus’ Calling put it quite well: “Your need for Me is as constant as the outflow of My Love into you.”

So, all that said, I think it’s a bit funny, and not in the laughing sense but more so in the sense of empty irony, that there are signs posted vocalizing “Need Prayer” or more typically “Need Prayer?” Because our need is so much greater than any prayer that could ever be offered. That’s why Jesus didn’t pray our salvation into happening; He died for it.

Two different points. In this depiction, two-point perspective. Most could stop there, satisfied having seemingly identified what this is all about. But there’s something more.

There’s always something more.

For instance, going back to the two-point example of A and B. Traditionally, “A” was where we started, “B” is where we’re going. In math you would learn quite logically that the quickest way from point A to point B was a straight line. Theoretically, of course this is true, but in terms of real-life, human beings exist in a set amount of time with a set amount of energy. Once spent, it can never be regained in that particular way.

This is key because that means perhaps a straight line is no longer the set answer we are looking at. A line could be straight but filled with all sorts of perils. There could be fire, deep pits, poisonous snakes, and other life-threatening obstacles; whereas, a curvy road might potentially be longer in measured length but far more pleasurable in experiences along the way.

Both are just examples and could be mixed and matched with ease and strife. Today, in Jesus Calling, Sarah Young spoke of routes on our life-journeys. She called One a trust-path - “The most direct route between point A and point B on your life-journey is the path of unwavering trust in [Christ].” For me, this provided the best example of what it means to walk a life-journey with Christ - it may not always hold ease or the expected, but that’s why it is a path of trust. When we’re walking on that path, we should be sustained no matter what comes our way, knowing we’re going toward point B and away from point A.

Because that’s the point of it, of a life-journey - it’s a journey, meaning you’re going to somewhere and away from another. Specifically, we should keep this in mind, because the point B in mention is the greatest destination we could never even hope to imagine for. Point B is life’s end and what lies beyond. For those who put their faith in Christ as Savior, point B comes right before Heaven.

God’s doing everything along our paths, in our journeys, preparing us for reaching point B. Proper trust gained and strengthened along the way is just one necessary component. Everything through which we undergo on the journey is meant to grow our trust and change us in some way. There’s purpose behind it all.

So back to two-point perspective - there’s two directionals, always with a choice. Which path will you choose to leave behind point A and head toward point B, with point B holding the greatest weight of where you spend eternity?

Photography has always been a passion in my life, only more recently pulsing through my veins with new and renewed fervor. Getting back into the lab has been inspiring and challenging, starting full-out with the most difficult project that I’ve ever been presented with completing —- artist collaboration.

The thing is, the project has no guidelines whatsoever, except to collaborate with a partner in the class who has been chosen for you by the professor. That’s it. Nothing else to go on. You can imagine my dismay at the overwhelming potential in that. When you can do anything, what will you do? Oh, and one little piece in the fine print, you have to come to a collaboration with your partner.

The journey in this art project has been slow at times, flooding at others, bouncing up and down, taking u-turns & even starting all over again in some respects.

But, in reality, it’s been an adventure all throughout and has really come to produce something fantastical - something that otherwise would not have been construed without the input and collaborative workings of the two artists in play. When I had one idea, she had another that complemented and stretched the original. When she thought of something to add, I brought to light past experience and what could be improved. And all along the both of us had different personal talents that really shined through in the work.

It truly developed into collaborative art.

So as I was reading my “Jesus Calling” for today, September 2nd, one phrase really struck a chord in my heart: “…what life is meant to be: living and working in collaboration with Me.” 

I view life as a journey, an adventure far greater than I could ever think to behold. As an artist, it’s funny, but I have only just recently come to seeing it also as the greatest work of art ever created and still in creation. Even the greatest Renaissance sculptor could never live up to the Creator’s great hand.

God has given us this life, this developing painting / moving photograph / whatever artistic medium you choose to view it as, and all the while He asks for only one thing…that we be collaborative artists with Him on it. He has given us the capability of choice, we fully have our own say in it; but He knows just how beautiful it couldbe, how much more potential lies there than we could ever fathom. That’s why He wants to have a say in its continuation of creation, day by day, moment by moment. Even the slightest alteration in a work of art holds significance.

“Jesus Calling” went on to say: “When you depend on Me continually, your whole perspective changes. You see miracles happening all around, while others see only natural occurrences and ‘conincidences’. You begin each day with joyful expectation, watching to see what I will do…You keep your plans tentative, knowing that My plans are far superior. You consciously live, move and have your being in Me, desiring that I live in you. I in you, and you in Me. This is the intimate adventure I offer you.”

Collaboration is truly miraculous, joyous, far superior to one artist’s input, and intimate from necessary openness.

How blessed we are that the Great Artist wants to collaborate with us.

Impossible statement, at least for us.

Yet for God, this is as part of His nature as being Love is. God was and is and always will be. He is on the very continuum of time that we have identified to exist and He was so before we even knew it existed.

God is with us tomorrow and always will be until the one and only Time that tomorrow will cease to exist - The Last Day. How incredible that is, that He is with us tomorrow. And He knows what tomorrow holds. He could describe it in any tense - past-tense, present-tense, future-tense - meaning He is capable of using the phrase “tomorrow was”.

He could do this, reveal His plan for us, with all the description and emotion it would hold as the Lord, alone, could do. And for His very select few, He does, and has in history’s past.

And though we won’t all get to hear what “tomorrow was” until tomorrow night comes and we discover it for ourselves, we can know two things: that God was with us through it all and knew what that day would hold.

So whatever “tomorrow was” after you live it, you could always know going into it that you’re not living it alone and that God already knows what it’s going to be like living in it by your side with you.

“She was like a ray of summer sun…She was a little girl in her glory, unashamed in her desire to delight, and be delighted in. It’s why little girls play dress up.” - Captivating p. 13

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This is a tribute to my parents’ endowment of a closet full of the ingredients for pure delight as a child growing up, located on the third floor of our home at 522 West Third Street.
- Thanks mum and dad (:

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How easy it was, to envelop myself in the layers of beauty. Just a scramble up the stairs, giggling all the while next to my sister, as we made the unconsidered trek to the location of the double-doors that held within the ingredients for delight. A swift tug on the knobs and our eyes would soon lay witness to they great array of wonder, the adornments that would make us beautiful.

“Hours and hours of endless play result from giving little girls a box filled with hats, scarves, necklaces, and clothes. Dime store beads are priceless jewels; hand-me-down pumps are glass slippers. Grandma’s nightie, a ballroom gown. Once dressed, tehy dance around the house or preen in front of a mirror. Their young hearts intuitively want to know they are lovely. Some will ask with words, ‘Am I lovely>’ Others will simply ask with their eyes. Verbal or not, whether wearing a shimmery dress or covered with mud, all little girls want to know. As a young songwriter recently wrote,

‘I want to be beautiful
And make you stand in awe
Look inside my heart
And be amazed
I want to hear you say
Who I am is quite enough
I just want to be worthy of love
And beautiful.’ ” - Captivating p. 14-15

Thankyou, mother and father, for the harboring of our natural longing to be delighted in, even with something so seemingly simple as a costume closet. Thankyou for helping us be beautiful, and in so much more than our begginings as children.

With love,
Your Elder Daughter