Browsed by
Category: summer

[Holy] Fear

[Holy] Fear

P1010100, originally uploaded by Lizi Beth.

Who among you fears the LORD
and obeys the word of his servant?
 Let him who walks in the dark,
 who has no light,
 trust in the name of the LORD
 and rely on his God.
– Isaiah 50:10


Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, “A vast army is coming against you …”

“O LORD, God of our fathers, are you not the God who is in heaven? … Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you. … We have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.”

All the men of Judah, with their wives and children and little ones, stood there before the LORD.

…”This is what the LORD says to you: ‘Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s. Tomorrow march down against them. … You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the LORD will give you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the LORD will be with you.’ ”

Jehoshaphat bowed with his face to the ground, and all the people of Judah and Jerusalem fell down in worship before the LORD.

Early in the morning they left for [battle]. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Listen to me, …! Have faith in the LORD your God and you will be upheld; …” After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the LORD and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying:
“Give thanks to the LORD,
for his love endures forever.”

As they began to sing and praise, the LORD set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated. The men of Ammon and Moab rose up against the men from Mount Seir to destroy and annihilate them. After they finished slaughtering the men from Seir, they helped to destroy one another.
…
The fear of God came upon all the kingdoms of the countries when they heard how the LORD had fought against the enemies of Israel. And the kingdom of Jehoshaphat was at peace,
for his God had given him rest on every side.

-II Chronicles 20:2-29

All of the above post was from one of the sermons I heard yesterday (I ended up hearing two).
It focused on the idea that prayer is our means of communicating with our God. It involves worship. Humility. Waiting for Him.
The other sermon I heard also talked about prayer. It made prayer sound like it was our ticket to get whatever we wanted from God, treating His power like a gumball machine.
That bugged me.
It is true that God loves us, that He wants to grant our desires. In fact, it is part of Who He is! But He wants us to know Him, for our desire to be Him. He wants us to turn to Him with worship when a situation turns bad, because He is our Light and our Strength, not because we know that He will give us an easy out.

Life, it just keeps moving ……….

Life, it just keeps moving ……….

For those of you who have been wondering, Elizabeth is back in school. Again.
In it up to her eyeballs.

I enjoy it, I really do, but I dread it at the same time. I want to get stellar scores, but really don’t like cramming a lot of information I won’t use into my brain. It also takes a lot of time, time that I would rather spend doing something else.

I really enjoy spending time with Anna, though. She and I have almost the same schedule, so we drive together, spend some of our breaks together, and study together. It is a big change from last semester, when it seemed as if we hardly ever saw one another. And I like it. :-)

Anyway, life just keeps moving. I try to keep up, try to live it as God would have me, ever and only bringing Him glory (with a varying ammount of success).

O Praise Him

O Praise Him

P2110012, originally uploaded by Lizi Beth.

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
-Thomas Ken

He has been good, so very good.

Whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God, the Creator of all light, and shines forever without change or shadow.
James 1:17

announcing …………

announcing …………

“Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please:

John Smillie has asked Elizabeth Jacobsen to be his wife. She consented (quite gladly, and without hesitation!).”

I think it may be an understatement, but both of us are VERY happy! We are prayerfully considering the future that God has in store for us, and would appreciate your prayers as well.


For more details, including the story of our courtship and John’s proposal, please follow this link.


The Bounty of Summer

The Bounty of Summer


I am going to miss our stone fruit trees when I move: the peaches, the apricots, the plums, nectarines ………!
We have several trees, and all of them have been loaded to the breaking point this summer. In fact, most summers are like this. It is hard for me to remember a summer when it wasn’t this way. First the apricots ripen, which we can. Then the plums, which are made into jam (one of Dad’s favorite kinds). The nectarines and peaches ripen almost simultaneously, which leads to a hectic week or two when we try to take advantage of as much as we can!
Now we have buckets and buckets of fruit in the kitchen, all waiting to be processed. Yummy!

The Worship Of Yardwork and Breadmaking

The Worship Of Yardwork and Breadmaking

“Evelyn Underhill said, ‘Spiritual reading is, or at least can be, second only to prayer as a developer and support of the inner life.’ And The Message of the Wesleys contains this striking sentence: ‘It cannot be that people should grow in grace unless they give themselves to reading.’ Surely a gracious God provides for the illiterate in other ways, but for most of us, the Scriptures and varied spiritual writings guide us to a deeper understanding of the truth that set us free.”
-brennan manning, the ragamuffin gospel, page 12

Reading refreshes me. It broadens my thinking, challenges my soul. It can encourage, as well as convict, inspire and reassure. But reading is not everything. One of the blogs I read put it well:

“take the time to knit (or cook or sew, or scrapbook, or hot glue pom-poms onto your daughters keds, or whatever lovely crafty thing you like to do), Because I find it impossible to read a science book, or go to an aquarium, or to exposit the first couple of chapters of Genesis and not be overwhelmed with God’s delight in beauty and variation, and in the actual process of design in creating. It’s fascinating, don’t you think, that in the tremendous act of creation, God chooses, not to speak the completed universe into existence all in one shot, but instead to spend six days creating and ordering the earth (days 4, 5&6 of creation filling up what was created on days 1, 2&3 – – look! it’s there!) and its inhabitants into the final “very good”.
Do we not, then, reflect the image of our creator when we ourselves order and create?“

-naomi smith, “on why i knit every once in a while instead of expositing scriptures”, july 15, 2007

Sometimes I just need to do something. Sometimes, in order to process everything and make sense of any of it, I need to take the things I have read and go. It may be for a run, it may be to lay in the grass and watch ladybugs, or even kneed a batch of bread. Today it was bread and scrapbooking, and in a little while, after it cools down a bit, will include gardening.
I am sorting through the past month, seeking God’s heart, and asking Him to heal mine.
It may take a while, but I know that the end result will be a little more beautiful, a little more perfect, a little more like His.
Because He is a God of creativity as well as mercy. He wants to have me in His Image, wants me to show His glory. So … the “work” God started many years ago is still in process.
You know what is something that amazes me? That God choses to use both the seemingly great things, as well as the seemingly insignificant things, to make me bow my head and worship Him. He never changes, but is continually revealing new facets of Himself. He is good.