In a Perfect World...

Why are relationships so difficult? Why do I do things that irritate people? Why are there people who totally annoy me? Sometimes I just want to go where I won’t ever have to deal with people and all of their stuff!!! Well...wait a minute...I wonder how many people say those things and think of me? Plain and simple, relationships are hard stuff.

Images by Ozzie

When you love someone you just want to spend time with them and that’s good because that is how relationship is cultivated. That just might be the easy part unless you have kids and schedules or work full-time. Making the effort with those commitments can get a bit sticky! However if we need to hang in there even when things get weird. Oh my do I know that that’s like and when it happens, I just want to escape and try not to deal with it. But that’s not the way to do it. That’s when I need to expend some effort to mend the hole created by an unkind word or a misunderstanding. I sure don’t want to take up an offense!

As I was pondering what lessons God has wanted me to learn in this season, and immediately remembered that He is teaching me what “love one another” is all about. You see...when we refuse to abide by this then we give the enemy a foothold and then we develop a stronghold and it gets harder and harder to deal with the situation and do the right thing. Laying aside ourselves to take up the concerns of others!  Just look what this passage in Colossians says from the Message paraphrase:

Colossians 3:12-14  So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

Put on love, in other words it should be the first item on when you awaken and the last off before bedtime. And if you have a spouse I guess you just need it 24/7!

It is a big, and sometimes consuming job all this relationship stuff! But you see, I have been given the mind of Christ. That means that I must gradually begin to adapt to Christ's nature in me, as I journey through the tough stuff. Even though I have bad days, don't I get a break here? Probably not if I am going to attain my goal. (Man, some days it can be a tough row to hoe!) And if you struggle with unconditional love like I do it can be even more difficult. But I am learning and it helps to take a look backward to see all that God has forgiven in me. This new garment of love takes a concerted effort to put and keep on, daily.

What can you do when relationships get sticky?
How difficult is it to wrangle your pride and admit that you may have had a role in an uncomfortable situation?

Father, it feels like I have so far to go on this journey, but I will continue to allow You to work out those uncomfortable traits in me even if it hurts and is uncomfortable. I will trust You as You continue to work all things together for my good and Your glory, in Jesus; name!

A Fortune Cookie?

Many years ago while in a spiritual growth spurt I remember being extremely frustrated that in my dreams it seemed as if I wasn’t a christian.  There is probably a doctor of something who has studied this kind of stuff and would be able to tell me why this happens...but that being said, I almost felt like only part of me was saved but not my subconscious.  It really began to bother me in the dreams I remembered.  (I typically don’t remember many of my dreams.)  If I belong to the Lord then I am His conscious and unconscious!  No split personality going on here!  So I began to pray and ask the Lord to please let me know that I am 100% his, through and through without wavering, asleep and awake!

It was but a few weeks from my intense request of the Lord when I had a dream that was incredibly vivid and even in color!  I think most of my dreams are black and white but the few real God-dreams I have had have been in technicolor--vivid and very intense.  I don’t remember who it was that I was with but that we were running and hiding out as if we were being pursued by someone.  I remember scenes of running up and down back outside staircases like on  apartment buildings and then suddenly I was with many others who were being ushered on a train.  I then realized that I had been taken captive.

Suddenly, soldiers were one-by-one taking people like me and executed us with machine guns.  It was soon to be my turn and I remember being grabbed roughly and as the gun was placed to my head and told I was next that I started to sing the chorus to “I Am Not Ashamed of the Gospel”.

I am not ashamed of the gospel, the gospel of Jesus christ,

I am not afraid to be counted, but I’m willing to give my life...”

And suddenly I woke up, completely amazed at what had just taken place in my dream.  You might enjoy listening to this powerful song yourself at the end of this post.

So what about the fortune cookie you are thinking?  About two weeks after this vivid dream that I believe was an answer to my request of the Lord, I found a fortune cookie placed on my desk at work.  We had a youth radio station and it was manned by young adults and they were such a blast to work with and have around and I was pretty certain that one of them had put it there.  so I opened it up and read it and was in total amazement as to what it said (I have to print it out because it is too faded to read from the picture above)...

You begin to appreciate how important it is to share your personal beliefs.

Okay, you may say whatever you want but have you ever seen a fortune with a message like that?  Not me!  And that was a confirmation for me that God not only heard my prayer but he answered it in a very dramatic way!  For some reason I needed to experience what He allowed me to live out in my dream and then it was as if He was said to me that I was His through and through!  Whew, the content of my dreams began to change after that and I no longer doubted whose I was!  And that old, yellowed and faded fortune remains taped to my computer screen at work!

Enjoy and older Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir presentation with Damaris Carbough...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECtCB7XqIO0