Why does God want us?

This excerpt from "The Ministry of ordinary places" (book I'm reading right now) by Shannan Martin

very much needed to be shared.

The question begs.. why does God use us? 

Why doesn't He just do it himself? Things would be so much smoother if God plowed through his plan without us in the way. But then there would be no reason for making us.. 

My takeaway (one view) is that He created us out of love, and if he didn't really want a relationship with his creation, then he would have no need to create. But he's a loving God and we are made in his image to show who he is in all aspects to the whole world. Because he is so complex and wonderful.

About Rahab in the Bible

"I personally think it's enough to call her a human, doing her best in spite of her hardships and occasionally leaving a trail of wreckage. Isn't that all of us?

God stationed Rahab in Jericho for a reason, with specific work to do. The same is true for me and you. 

The day will never arrive that I am not astonished by God's eagerness to carry out his plans through the likes of us. His methodology for getting things done is a head-scratcher for the ages.

With us by his side, everything is guaranteed to take one thousand times longer along a path potholed with our mess-ups and general antics. It would be so much more efficient to just do it all himself while we were napping or something. 

He doesn't tire of us. He doesn't write us out of the script or make rash decisions about our fate. 

He hitches his glory to our ruin and keeps on trucking, 

delighted by every tiny step we make in the right direction."

We really truly are like children to Him. He loves on every aspect of us, and takes joy in watching us grow and stumble and learn and find, and he rejoices with us in our own joyous moments.

 

40 days in the Bible - what gives?

the ark- Noah

Jesus being out alone in the desert

what's with the 40 days?

https://www.guideposts.org/inspiration/miracles/gods-grace/the-number-40-in-the-bible#:~:text=%20The%20Number%2040%20in%20the%20Bible%20,of%20Judea’s%20sins%0AThe%20prophet%20Ezekiel%20was...%20More

"“Forty days” means “forty days,” but it does seem that God has chosen this number to help emphasize times of trouble and hardship. " 

and 

" Answer: The number 40 shows up often in the Bible. Because 40 appears so often in contexts dealing with judgment or testing, many scholars understand it to be the number of “probation” or “trial.”. This doesn’t mean that 40 is entirely symbolic; it still has a literal meaning in Scripture. “Forty days” means “forty days,” but it does seem that God has chosen this number to help emphasize times of trouble and hardship." - gotquestions.org

This is actually a specific number of days. 

"After all, it pops up in the Good Book 159 times , across both the Old and New Testaments."   - guideposts.org

This reminds me of a month of probation or a month of test and see what happens. 

Parenting during a pandemic.. food

 Okay.. so I’m going to say.. I don’t care. Lol. 

As a mom.. trying to just make it through this virtual school thing, I’m not worrying too much about making meals. 

Why?

Because keeping up with all their classes, virtual meetings, making sure they do them AND stay on schedule. 

And then still trying to clean the house. Making sure I know when the laundry needs to be done, and the vacuuming, and the bathroom cleaning, and picking up things that I’ve put down everywhere in an attempt to get to them sooner or later. 

And then still keeping up with the regular self care and receipts and appointments (whether in person or virtual) and helping my husband with whatever he needs from me. 

SO GRATEFUL that the school is doing weekly pickup for school food, because that’s a huge blessing. 

So no.. making a weekly sit down meal is not on my agenda. 

This mama is whooped. As long as they are fed and not full of sugar.. My job is done. :) 

So I care, as a mom, because if I didn’t, it wouldn’t matter to me what was on the grocery list. But I do. I make sure there are food options in the house that won’t make them overweight and addicted. 

So as long as my house is stocked with enough to eat, my opinion, they can have their choice of food.

the cult of self-affirmation

autonomy and authenticity - Allie B Stuckey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyQaY0WTE9A&list=WL&index=28&t=1679s

gender ideology

you are yourself to the point of denying your physical appearance and letting feelings guide your life

be who you are

but self-empowerment takes power away from our Creator

we are not supposed to trust ourselves, we are sinful and fallible 

we are to rely on God who is perfect and all powerful and consistent eternally

the God of this cult is "self"

we are making ourselves God's, idolizing humanity as all powerful

we try to take control of every aspect of life

where does tax money go

 Michigan taxes, I found, go mostly to school systems k-12 and government funding. But with our roads getting damaged a lot, I wonder why we don’t have more tax dollars going towards that?

https://www.michiganradio.org/post/where-do-michigans-tax-dollars-go

Porn - parent seminar

Porn is not a sex problem, it's an intimacy problem.

Pornography refers to material dealing with sex designed to arouse its readers or viewers. Webster's Dictionary defines “pornography” as “writings, pictures, etc. intended primarily to arouse sexual desire.” There are two types of pornography that receive no First Amendment protection — obscenity and child pornography.

friend in school on the bus talking about a movie on TV called "she woke up pregnant". - conversation on a school bus going to school.. again, a private Christian school. My friend looked like she was excited that she saw something dirty, like it was a popular thing to do. I actually remember her saying “the doctor in the movie snuck into the room where the girl was sedated, unbuttoned her blouse and did it.” With this sparkle and giggle in her voice.. my goodness, the things we were subjected to, that i remember so clearly.

movie I saw on TV at a friends house, this guy with the long curly hair was like her 4th cousin and they were lovers. - i figured if it was okay for her to see this movie, it was not a bad movie. Looking back now, it was soft porn. Realizing now in adulthood that a sheltered little church girl was exposed to soft porn at a friends house before even leaving home to be on her own.. anybody anywhere can be exposed to these things and not know it! 

me sexting in college - i didn’t have a clue what i was doing. But i started talking to this guy in a chat room who seemed nice and before you know it, I’m telling him dirty things like I’m writing a book or something, totally not even putting together in my head what was going on. I didn’t know then what i know about myself, so my naïveté got the best of me. 

snap chat used to be called peek a boo, owned by the porn industry - why do we know these things and why don’t we do something about it? Like NOT USE THE APP? 

https://conquerseries.com
helping older teens and men give up porn!

https://www.covenanteyes.com
software that helps you screen out porn on your devices.

https://mytruegirl.com/how-to-talk-to-your-kids-about-porn/?inf_contact_key=5abdb15fed56fa078e21cae7e6862e9ad18a532c4142cb79caf2b269de1401fa

This link is to a parent seminar that my husband and I listened to.

Where and when were you first exposed to these things? And did you even know at that time what it was? 

motivation.. where does it go?

Where do you get your motivation from? 

How long does it stick around? 

What does it motivate you to do? 

But then where does it go?

Why do we lose our drive? 

Why do we give up on something we worked so hard to achieve? To get? 

Do we ask for wrong kind of motivation? 

Is it a single goal driven energy?

And then when we reach that one goal, we stop? 

Or do we give up before even getting halfway through what we needed it for? 

Daily motivated 

Hourly motivated

Motivated to get the girl

Motivated to chase the dream

What do you need motivation for right now? 

GO GET IT!

politically correct

https://radicalcopyeditor.com/2016/10/24/part-1-politically-correct-is-a-slur/




[Description of featured image above: Reason #1 for why we need to stop saying “politically correct”: it’s designed to be a slur, not a positive phrase. “PC” mythology speech bubble says: “Being politically correct means avoiding offensive language.” Radical truth-teller speech bubble says: “The term politically correct is a weapon used by people protecting their right to be biased.”]
https://radicalcopyeditor.com/2016/10/24/we-need-to-stop-saying-politically-correct/

lib·er·a·tion

/ˌlibəˈrāSH(ə)n/

Learn to pronounce

noun

noun: liberation; plural noun: liberations

1. the act of setting someone free from imprisonment, slavery, or oppression; release.

   "the liberation of all political prisoners"

   
   

   • freedom from limits on thought or behavior.

     "the struggle for women's liberation"

     
     

     
     

     If people wouldn’t get offended so easily, and stop misusing human rights, we wouldn’t have stupid phrases like “political correctness”.  - ME

How religious are you?

Religious? 

I don’t understand what “religion” is all about, except that it’s a man made structure to lead humanity to believe in certain ways. 

The definition of religion is :

the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.
"ideas about the relationship between science and religion"
Similar:
faith
belief
divinity
worship
creed
teaching
doctrine
theology
sect
cult
religious group
faith community
church
denomination
body
following
persuasion
affiliation
• a particular system of faith and worship.

  plural noun: religions

  "the world's great religions"
• a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.

  "consumerism is the new religion"

 A superhuman controlling power? 

So like Superman? Being religious would be following someone like him and believing in him as your savior.. kind of like in the movies. So they sort of create religions around superhero’s ... hmm. 

Thought bubble. 

So creating importance around something that you “worship” that is so vital to your life that it becomes what you basically (consume isn’t the right word).. (soak up).. (engulf).. I can’t think of the word.. do you get what I mean? Pretty much immersing yourself in it, whatever it may be (person, place or thing).. and following it like your life depends on it. 

So a religion is something that you do .. religiously. 

Meaning, something that your whole life revolves around, something you believe in so much that it’s your core. 

I don’t have that. 

I’ve never had that. 

That would be creating an idol out of something that is created by a creator. 

Making a visual image that you can worship and revolve around that has nothing to do with the Trinity of God. The cross that Jesus hung on could be an idol, then, because some people worship the cross, instead of realizing that the cross is a reminder of what the person of Jesus actually did. 

He isn’t the cross.. the cross is a reminder of the sacrifice of God the father creating a physical Son so that the Spirit could live in our souls and guide us to heaven. (The trinity working together, as it should, in community.)

How religious am I?

I’m not. 

I’m in a relationship with the One Being who could ever give me life and grace. 

the book of job

 how long was Job's suffering? could have been from a couple week to almost a year. 

https://www.gotquestions.org/Job-suffering.html

This man, Job, was almost like a precursor to the picture of perfection that Jesus showed us in the New Testament. 

So many times we question how someone who was/is so faithful to God and lived what looked like a perfect life could have so many "bad things" happen to them. 

And after he lost everything he had (children, animals, crops, home) he was attached physically. Even his wife told him to "curse God and die!". 

red letters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK80AdFdmCM

David Crowder - music

The first red letter Bible was published in 1901. 

The red letters are Jesus words, where He's being quoted. 

Hence the reason there are no red letters in the Old Testament, since He wasn't born until the New Testament. (This is when the accounts of his life started.)

Red evokes the color of blood, and therefore is the color of martyrs and of Christ's death on the Cross. 

https://www.jesusbelieverjd.com/all-the-red-letter-scriptures-of-jesus-in-the-bible-kjv/

I'm grateful for this writer, he put together links of all the red letter sections of the Bible! 

Take a look. :) 

Luke 11

11 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

2 He said to them, “When you pray, say:

“‘Father,[a]
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.[b]
3 Give us each day our daily bread.
4 Forgive us our sins,
    for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.[c]
And lead us not into temptation.[d]’”

------

------

THE VERSION WE USE TODAY

The Lords Prayer- he taught us how to pray. 

Our Father, who is in heaven..

Hallowed be Your name!

May your kingdom come and Your will be done on earth, just as it is in heaven. 

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive our debts, just as we forgive our debtors. 

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil!

For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever.. Amen!

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd,

I shall not want. (I lack nothing)

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

He leads me beside quiet waters and restores my soul, for His name sake. 

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me. 

You're rod and your staff, they comfort me. 

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. 

You anoint my head with oil. 

My cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord always. 

being worthy, being enough

 I don't understand what this means. 

Being worthy.. of what? for what? because of what? 

Then what? 

Being enough.. enough of what? 

Is this about being whole in yourself and loving yourself and being happy and stuff? 

------

Maybe it's because I find my worth in God, and I know that Jesus is enough for me.. because He is everything. 

I have my value in my creator.. not in myself. 

As a human being, I can't give myself value. I can love who I am, yes, but worthiness doesn't come from ourselves.. being "enough" doesn't make sense to me, because the word doesn't fit in my brain as a product of myself.

If these words, these "topics" come from the culture of finding happiness in myself and being whole as a person on my own.. that's probably why they don't make sense to me. 

Because in myself, I am nothing. I am just a body that needs to be filled with the Holy Spirit and the message and the love of my Creator.

If I want to find worthiness and being enough of a person on my own, then I have no need for a Savior. And I have no need to detach from Him. If I do that, I am nothing. 

Sometimes it's good to go back to your roots

What a friend we have in Jesus

When I think about the lord, how he saved me

cast your burden, unto Jesus, for he cares for you!

higher higher, higher higher higher higher, lift Jesus higher higher

lower lower, lower lower lower lower, lower lower stomp Satan lower lower

you've got a friend ;) 

you just call out my name

and you know wherever I am

I'll come running to see you again

winter, spring, summer or fall

all you have to do is call

and I'll be there 

you've got a friend

what things do you remember from your childhood?

mine was growing up in the church

is it a good place to remember?

or is it a place you never want to see again? 

what are your roots like?

expensive items being better than others

 This idea came to mind because one of my daughters was with me in the car and we saw an expensive car and I said "that's a nice car". It made me think.. why is it a nice car? Because it costs a lot? Because it looks desirable to you? 

So when we desire something that’s NOT ours, it’s BETTER than what we have? 

I challenge you to look at your own life, look at the things that you have, and point out what you own that’s NICE. 

I think it’s honestly because of our sin nature that we subconsciously always want things we don’t have.. and that goes against the 10 commandments. Imagine how it would feel if we didn’t have a problem with desiring things other people have. We would be so much more content with our lives.

What is it about basements that make them creepy?

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-we-seem-to-have-a-fear-of-basements

Interesting web article about it. 

This topic came to mind because the other day (and days before), I have asked my kids to go down and put something away in the basement or try to find something, or bring something up from the pantry shelves. Most of the time they say it’s scary, and I roll my eyes and tell them to do it anyways. 

This last week, I had a mind blow moment remembering my childhood.. and how I always felt when I went in the basement. I was scared of the basement, too! What is it about basements that’s scary?

Being single after divorce

A couple nights ago, my husband and I watched a new episode of GLOW (gorgeous ladies of wrestling, on Apple TV). The main lady said that now that she’s single again, “I guess I have to start dating again, huh?” Why? Are people not allowed to be single? Is there really that much pressure from peers and society to always be in relationships? Sounds like a huge problem with codependency to me. Then again, if you’ve been married to someone for any amount of time, I guess just the feeling of being on your own can be daunting. But I really hope and pray that people can learn to be on their own and be healthy individuals and happy and content with who they are instead of constantly depending on on other people to complete them. 

Fad versus trend

 A fad is something that comes and goes very quickly. Something that's popular and then fades out. 

A trend is something that can be repeated or consistent over time. 

I enjoy some things that are trendy. But I'm definitely not on board with most fads. 

Fads can become trends! 

But most of the time, a fad is something that explodes because it's ridiculous and then dies out fast. 

Christ is not Jesus last name

Christ means the anointed one, so when you say Jesus Christ, you say Jesus, the anointed one. 

When someone is nice to me... (a Childs point of view)

I think they’re a Christian ✝️ Zoe 

But people who are not Christians can be nice, too. ;) I have encountered and been in friendships/relationships with many people who were super kind and didn't believe in God the way I do.

this was the view of my 11 year old daughter.. if someone is nice, they are a Christian. 

what a sweet honest view of how she sees people of faith. 

Eye Liner - My beauty thing.

 I know this doesn't sound important, but to someone who doesn't really do makeup.. except for one product.. and then that product starts to give you allergies.. it's frustrating. 

My favorite makeup product has always been eyeliner. 

And up until a couple years ago, I always use Mary Kay soft twistable eyeliner. Well, come to find out, it is soy based, and I have become allergic to soy. DANG IT. 

So I began a journey over the last month to find something else that I like and that works for me. 

Hence.. the dollar tree eyeliner haul. 

Jesse's girl was the first one I tried. It's a liquid metallic blue.. beautiful! And it stayed really well! 

And no soy. ;) 

WINNER 

The next one I used was a liquid as well, by Maybelline, a brand I generally am happy with. 

Unfortunately, this purple is so light, I need a darker color because of my complexion. Also, I don't feel like it stayed very well. 

I ended up giving it to my daughter, who (didn't think about this) also has a dark complexion like me, so it doesn't show up well on her either. :P Well, I have two other daughters. Here's hoping. 

Next, hard candy (awesome brand!) was good! It was a little rough putting on, but it stayed really well. It has a shimmer to it, which I also like, and it has a smudger on the other end if I want to blend it out instead of having a solid black line. 

ANOTHER WINNER :) 

       

Last, but not least L.A. Colors. This is the Dollar Tree brand, and usually a go to for me. They rarely, if ever, disappoint. So I gave it a go. It's a dark brown, I do like the application. It's a harder tip so just be gentle, but it's good coverage, I like the end result, but it tends to wear off over time. I recommend having a foundation or primer on before this so it sticks better. Or a combination of that with a good setting spray. (I recommend www.shopmissa.com for that)

So three winners in the trial of 4 (and I got a random one in the mail by mistake from a company who was supposed to send me eyeshadow.. it's a clear glitter liner.. woot! Back to the 80's). 

So it sucks that I can't wear my all time favorite anymore, and I'm still on the hunt for a dark purple liner (some on Shop Miss A, but they are always out of stock, sigh). Eventually ;)