Wind,Rain,Winding Roads & Sunshine, The By-Ways of Life

The Best Place To Invest Your Trust

Putting your trust in God will break every yoke that tries to hold you down.   It is a fact and one that I cannot explain, but if you take God at his Word, you will find yourself doing the impossible.  No, it is not just making it. It is much more than that.  It is also not just staying alive. It goes deeper than that.  It is not just a surface love with a surface commitment of going to church every Sunday to please God. No, it is much wider than that.  This type of trust goes down into the psyche of your soul. It penetrates your mind and begins to change you. 

Where once you thought you could not, you can; where once you thought there was no way, a path opens; where once you lived only for yourself, you start living for others; where once you waited for people to wait on you, now you serve them; where once you thought that life was over at 55 or 65, you see your life as just beginning; where once you saw total hopelessness, you see opportunities pulling you towards more options that you had not seen before; where once you were living a life of despair, you  have found a tiny river of joy that keeps on increasing, flowing out of you and touching others.

No, this is not some type of Pollyanna, everybody's happy religion, where you are blindfolded and trying to pin the tail on a donkey, that I am talking about. It is not the ring around the roses, a pocketful of posies, either.  

 

• Often the situations you are in do not change right away. 
• Often the furnace gets hotter and you are barely hanging on.
• Often you have to turn your back on family members and friends who, with their well meaning words, are destructive because they do not understand what God is doing in your life.
• Often you find yourself standing up to be counted and you are the only one standing.
• Often you stand before a mountain, waiting on the signal to start climbing and go up a little higher while others jeer at you, shake their heads, saying you are crazy. 
• Often it looks like you are defeated, but late in the midnight hour a  door opens that you least expected.

 This unchangeable, unalterable trust in God will put you in the driver's seat and keep you there. This investment is the best you can make while journeying here on earth.  The European Union, The Congress of the United States of America, The Parliaments in Australia, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and all the  other countries  cannot offer you unchangeable, unalterable trust.  Governments change their minds with every delegate and with every election. What they promise today becomes obsolete tomorrow.  If you put your trust in them, you are lost. Every political person serving in some type of governmental position has one trait that we all have, a deceitful heart.  Don't believe me? Look at Jeremiah 17:9-10.  The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I, the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve."

So start banking at the best bank offered for this world.  The owner  is trustworthy and good at his word. What he says, he will do. Getting to know him and learning how to stand on his promises will be the best investment you make for your journey. By him, the interest rates go up and your investment always increases. 

"See the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction!

But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God.  I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and forever."[2]

Be blessed this weekend.

Shalom,

Pat Garcia

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[1] Jeremiah 17:9-10 New International Version (1984 Edition)

[2] Psalm 52:7-8, English Standard Version

Letting Go

Recently, while helping someone out that needed help urgently, I experienced the pain of letting go.  Letting go of someone by death is difficult, but I believe it is more difficult to let go of people with whom you have celebrated birthdays, weddings or with whom you have celebrated many meals together.  These are the people you have called friends, people who have played an integral part in your life. These people have not departed this world but have separated themselves from your life, by moving in a different direction on their life journey.  This kind of departure is not easy.

  Letting Go A  Running Theme In The Bible

 Yet the Bible is full of people who had to let go.  Abraham had to leave a family that he treasured.  Moses was put in a basket by his mother and floated on the Nile with his sister watching to see where he landed.  Brothers, who hated Joseph the dreamer, forcefully moved him away from his loving and doting father.  David had to leave his beloved home and go in the King's castle to play on his harp, and lift the depressions that King Saul had.  Samuel was given up as soon as his mother, Hannah, weaned him and given to Eli the wicked Priest who was more afraid to chastise his own sons than to make sure that everything ran properly in the LORD's Tabernacle. Mordecai gave up Esther to the harem of King Xerxes, the ungodly ruler of 127 provinces and at the appointed time, she was able to save a nation.  These are only a few of the biblical instances where people were put into situations where they had to let go.

 What does that say to you?  How many of you are willing to let go of the old?  To stretch yourselves into something new or to let someone new into your circle of friends; someone or something that will not only change your life and your way of thinking, but will affect the lives of those people you normally come in contact with.   Is it not often so, that you get so comfortable in your little niche, with your little group of friends that you feel immediately threaten by someone new or something new?

 Inviting Change Into Your Life

 At the beginning of the year, I began my rehearsals with my pianist in preparation for our first band practice at the end of February.  His son, barely four years old, came to the door as I rang the doorbell.  His father said to me, "Simon wants to be a part of your rehearsal. He wants to watch you sing."  This was something that I had not experienced for a long time, nor had I expected it.  Normally, I relate to his father and mother. We are adults and have things in common with one another. However, here was a four year old wanting to be a part of my circle.  I must admit that I thought he would not stay there the entire time. After all my voice has a natural and unusual loudness and in a small room, it is even louder. In addition to that, his father and I tend to repeat a song until we both have reached the level of professionalism, where the song is buried in my spirit.

 Needless to say, I was surprised when that little tiger stayed in the room, the entire time.  He did not even try to distract us and as I sang, every now and then to him, he would look directly into my eyes. It honoured me and made me realized that I had just won another friend.  It also made me think of letting go and being stretched.  Letting go of my perceived perception of who belongs in my world and allowing myself to be stretched so that a little tiger like Simon could enter in.   My circle became a little wider that afternoon because a new friend had entered into my life that I have  had to learn how to relate to.  

 The Invitation To Let Go And Stretch

 So, let go and let yourself be stretched. Don't limit yourself to your little world.  Sooner or later you will find yourself stagnating.  Doing the same old thing or hanging around the same old people all the time is not good for anyone. 

 No wonder Jesus replied to the crowd when his mother and brothers stood outside wanting to speak with him, " Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?"

 Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers.  For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.[1]   

 Be blessed this week.

Shalom,

 Pat Garcia

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[1] Matthew 12:48-50, (New International Version, 1984 Edition)

 

Graham Fletcher, The Surgeon With The Sword

Every now and then you come across people, who influence your life to such an extent, that you change.  They usher in an expansion by operating on your heart and  opening your eyes to see what you really could be.  People of this calibre encourage you to keep moving forward.  They refuel your motivation about your vision, put light on the dark crevices in the corners of your life, and broaden your view of how you see things.  In other words, they cause you to  stretch, and give you a healthy kick forward.   

 People like this are rare.  They have a charge to be a blessing, to light the way, to point out truth and give direction to the people of God. They usually neglect their own comforts for the comforts of the majority. Such a person visited C3 Church, Hanau this past weekend, the honourable Graham Fletcher.  I say, honourable because he is just that, an honourable and holy man of God.

 If you were looking for a movie star, or seeking someone with a big oracle shouting out "Thus said the LORD", or looking for him to shake the earth or turn the moon red, then you would  have been disappointed.   Instead, you would have found Graham Fletcher, a humble man chosen by God, who came as the still small voice of the LORD to spread encouragement and truth to all who were willing to hear. 

 Full of humour, exact in his extrapolation of the scriptures, and filled with the dreams of what would happen, if people would hang on to their visions and keep moving, Fletch, as many call him, challenged us to prepare our upper room. Taking the text from 2 Kings 4: 8-17, he wetted our appetites by quietly digging up dreams that some of us had buried deep within us and he breathed life into them with the Word of God.

 But he did not stop there.  Graham Fletcher teased us with the revelations revealed to him in the scriptures and many of us sat and drank from the water that he was giving out from the wellsprings of life.

 The Word, which came forth, had two parts.  For those of us, who had gotten caught up in his web, there was only one way to free ourselves, hearing Part Two on Sunday morning.  I admit that Sunday is the day when I relax. I attend church on Saturday and love my Saturday evening service, but nothing, not even my tiredness, could keep me from Sunday morning's service and Part Two.

 Was it worth it? What do you think?  Again, Fletch hit the bullseye and the Word of the LORD took root, deep root into thirsty souls. Taking 2 Kings 8:1-6, he showed us the care of the woman, who had prepared the upper room from 2 Kings 4:8-17, in famine and the restoration of her life after the famine had ceased.

 Thanks, Fletch. The joy, revelation and power that were released through you will definitely be seen in our lives in the days ahead. We, at C3 Church Hanau, are glad to have you as a part of our family! Thank you, for resurrecting the dreams in many of us, dreams that we had forgotten  and thank you for giving hope to those of us who are marching towards fulfilling our dreams.

As always, I can only say, you are simply the best!

Shalom,

Pat Garcia

 

You And Your Vision

Your vision of who you are will move you beyond every boundary of limitation. It will cause you to think and grow. It will fertilize the faith within you and supply you with a can do spirit. It will break the bonds of limitations that others put upon you, regardless of whether it is your age, your race, your upbringing, your education or whatever else others used in a well meaning way to discourage you.

If you decide to follow the small quiet voice of the Spirit, which God  has planted within you, the vision in you  will grow. It starts out as a tiny seed  buried deep within you. However, as you act upon what you see it goes through the scientific testings encountered in life, strengthening itself as it grows through the doubts, worries, and well meaning comments which surround it and try to keep the vision from becoming a reality.

Such testings succeed in making you stronger, because deep within,  you know that you know and regardless of whether anyone else perceives it, you keep evolving into the vision that you see for yourself. The struggle is sometimes immense. Sometimes you get knocked back and you have to start over at a certain point, but the fact is, that you get up, tie up your shoestrings and get back on track.

If you are able to stand in the face of opposition and resist the temptation of being like everyone else, if you can resist having your pleasure now or resist the fear of failure then you have the possibility of discovering your own greatness and realizing your vision.

It will be lonely on your journey because most people will not understand you. Ask every person who has reached that pinnacle. History is full of them, from  Moses to  Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Martin Luther King and many others who are living among us today. 

Vision driven people find their purpose in life and they make a difference in the lives of those around them. They decide to step out and be unique.  If one could ask them about the price at the end of their journey, they would probably say, "It was lonely at the top, but it was a beautiful view. It was worth it!

May the LORD who is near to all, who call on him, bless you in all  that you undertake to do,

Shalom,

Pat Garcia

 

Nothing Ever Just Happens!

Nothing ever just happens!  There is nothing that exists within our world, our lives, our daily existence that was not created by our thought life.  A nation of fearful people create fear and loss, people who hate, create a hateful and distrusting environment, people who love, create  an atmosphere of love, trust and loyalty. Whatever it is, that is happening in your world, is the creation of your own thought life.  

 This is not positive thinking, this is fact.  You see, positive thinking is what gets you out of  bed but it does not get you going.  It is the intention to do it, that inputs the fuel to  gets you going but again, it does not make you do something. No, it takes the angry outburst of energy within you, coupled with the "I Will"  of  faith,  which ignites those positive thoughts and intentions and  hurls you into chaos and turbulent disorder,  that later on becomes the reality that you have done the impossible. Order in your life has been restored  by reaching your goal. In this chaos and turbulent state you called out those dreams and you undertake whatever is necessary, to make it happen  until order has been established. 

 Don't believe me, look at the creation.  "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." (Genesis 1:2) This was pure chaos.  The Spirit of God saw the chaos, the darkness, the void and He brought order into this emptiness by calling out with His Word the existence of the universe.  

You are probably saying but Patricia, that is God, I am not God. Well, I am not a Bible Scholar with Theological degrees, but Jesus said in John 10:34-36, while quoting Psalm 82:6, "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?  If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?"

 So calling out those things that you want to see take place in your life as though they were is a MUST! No, it will not happen overnight. Nothing worthwhile ever does.   It enfolds itself day by day as you take positive action towards it. 

 So, be careful what you think and measure the words that come out of your mouth carefully. You will see them at some point on your life journey. 

 Be blessed this week.

 Shalom,

 Pat Garcia

 

*All Scriptures are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

 

Holding on to Hope

     One of the key ingredients of faith is hope. Faith  develops through hope, when we step out into our dream, with no guarantees of how and when it will happen.

     In order to cultivate this kind of faith in our lives, hope is the special ingredient that we need. Faith is the substance of things hoped for! Hope is that  catalyst that fuels our faith. It is that blessed hope or blessed expectancy,  that keeps us doing what we have to do regardless of how bad the weather, how ruthless the gossip or how hard the task; it keeps us going.  

     Abraham's body was somewhere between 98 and 99 years old; Sarah was around 90 years of age, when they conceived Issac. Yes, they were still sexually intimate with one another! There is only  one seed which was planted by divine intervention and that would take place forty-two generations after Issac's birth. The Bible says “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed” with a body as good as dead that he could bring forth life with Sarah. 

    So, I encourage you to  hold on to hope and keep believing and moving toward your dream.  It is  what sustains you as you continue to maintain, when tears, desperation and doubts come at you.  This blessed hope is what kept people like Abigail Adams, Helen Keller, Harriet Tubman,  Mary MacLeod Bethune, Marion Andersen, Derek Prince, William P. Lear,  Robert Schuller, Billy Graham, S. Truett Cathy, Wally Amos and many others going until they received their dream.

May the LORD who is near to all who call on Him keep you in His everlasting arms. 
Be a blessing this week. 

Shalom,

Pat Garcia

 

Patience

Patience is a virtue that can only be learned when going through trials. When the battles of life are raging and you are seeking answers or solutions to difficult situations taking place, at that particular moment in your life, don’t get panicky, keep looking upward and hold still. If it seems like God has forgotten you and like King Saul, you want to offer the sacrifice out of fear of people^[1] as he had done before Samuel arrived; if you feel the need to do something, or if it seems like you can't hold on and everything within you says, it is over, go ahead live out what you are feeling; don't do it, hang in there. God has not forgotten you. His love and mercy are still reigning in your life because you are still living, still breathing His breaths of life. When you can grasp the principle that God’s love is all encompassing and omnipotent; that He really is an on- time God who never forsakes His children or leave one in a hopeless mess; you become restful; you will be able to WAIT. The reality of what you are going through may not change quickly, the emotions battling within you may not calm down immediately, the negative voices that you hear degrading your decision to hold on may not stop completely, but based on your faith in a Covenant keeping God that loves his own and cannot lie, you know he has not forgotten you. Psalm 27: 14 says it, “Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.”^[2]

Habakkuk preached it when He said, [“I will go out and see how the LORD will handle my complaint.”^][3] Joseph lived it while waiting on God to move on his behalf after being sold in captivity out of demonic interference fulfilled through his brothers by the spirit of jealousy; after the attack by the spirit of lust through Potiphar's wife; after the attack on his integrity by the spirit of deprivation of his freedom through Potiphar himself, when he was thrown into prison unjustly by a seemly intelligent man who was insanely jealous. Yes, Joseph held on to the dream that he was given, even though, I am sure that he went through some deep valleys while holding on. He continued to hold on and received the promise.

How do I know it? It stands in the Bible. After 13 tears, he was called to appear before Pharaoh. And the same God who had taken care of him by giving him favor at Potiphar's house; by giving him favor before the head jailer; this same God brought him before Pharaoh and fulfilled the dream that he had given him at 17 years of age. The dream became reality!

Wait I say, wait on the LORD! He has not forgotten you. Wait on the LORD!

May the LORD who is near to all who call on Him keep you in His everlasting arms.

Schalom,

Pat Garcia

1 See THE HOLY BIBLE, New International Version, 1984, 1 Samuel15:24.

2 See The HOLY BIBLE, New International Version, 1984, Psalm 24:14.

3 See THE HOLY BIBLE; New International Version, 1984, Habakkuk 2:1, Paraphrased.

 

 

Does Jesus Really Know What We Are Going Through?

We often talk about the cross and what Jesus did for us.  We look at the benefits that we have received because of his death and resurrection.  At Christmas, we honor his birth and at Easter, we celebrate his resurrection and  the freedom that we enjoy being reunited with God as one of his children.   Often I have imprinted in my mind that:

Jesus was punished that I might be forgiven.

Jesus was wounded that I might be healed.

Jesus was made sin with my sinfulness that I might be made righteous with His righteousness.

Jesus died my death that I might share His life.

Jesus was made a curse that I might receive the blessing.

Jesus endured my poverty that I might share his abundance.

Jesus bore my shame that I might share his glory.

Jesus endured my rejection that I might enjoy His acceptance.

My old man died in Jesus that the new man might live in me.^⁠1

These proclamations taken from Derek Prince's book The Divine Exchange have helped me over many critical points in my life when I thought at the beginning, there was no end.  I was totally sunken into the struggles  that my own choices, whether good or bad,  had  brought me up against,  and could only ask myself at some point in the struggle "Does Jesus really understand what I am going through?" 

One hears it from the pulpit as it is being proclaimed through a sermon from the  Preacher, "Jesus knows what you're going through” and  people  looking for something to say to comfort you,  used this as a fossil to quickly get away  because they are afraid it might affect them.  Most of us have read amazing autobiographies or biographies in which people have come through amazing feats after asking themselves the same question and having received an answer they move on to accomplish amazing things, but the question for you still remains unanswered and you continue to ask yourself,  "how do I know that Jesus really knows what I'm  going through?”  I can honestly  say that if you are in the pits of life right now and you are asking yourself that particular question, then  I can understand what you're going through.  Those pits are designed to  provoke us to asking two questions, “LORD, where are you? Do you know what I am going through?”  and to receiving the answer which comes from entering in to  that experience.  It happens to all people who want to fulfill their destiny.  But getting back to my subject how do you know that Jesus really knows what you are going through?”,  I have discovered it is through the Holy Spirit.  He is the one who opens our eyes to the fact that Jesus really know what you're experiencing.

For example,   I had read Luke 4:1-13 thousands of times.  I can even quote you some of the verses by memory and yet all of these years, I never saw the temptation of Jesus  in the way that the Holy Spirit has revealed it to me recently.   Amazingly, I finally saw that it wasn't candies and cherries after 40 days of not eating.  Jesus was hungry!  In other words, he was not ready to jump up and plant new trees or conquer the world.  He was tired, full of despair, weakened, depressed and hungry.  You don't believe me? Then look in 1Kings 19 verse 8, twice the Angel of the LORD told Elijah to get up and eat  because the journey was too great for him; or look at Daniel. He was fasting 21 days for clarity of a message given to him by God and he ate no choice food, left off the meats and alcohol and didn't even use any lotions or oil to cream his body and he was weak.^⁠2  However,  on the twenty-fourth day of that month he received clarity of the message from God in a vision. Wow! Wow! and again Wow!

So, what am I trying to say?  Jesus was anything but a conqueror at the time of his wilderness experience. In his manhood, he probably asked, “Where are you, Father?” He was very man and had to make some real decisions. Our redemption depended upon his decisions,  his choices and those were to resist the devil or succumb to him  I am so glad that he didn't succumb because if he had, all of mankind would have been lost forever.

You may say to me "Oh Patricia, he was the Son of God and he couldn't fail."  That's not true!  Sure he was the Son of God but when he was in the wilderness, he was the Son of  man,  living in a world that was under the rule of Satan.  God couldn't interfere because he would have taken away Jesus' free will to decide, to choose.  Aren't you glad Jesus' chose to save mankind instead of eating  when the devil offered him something to eat because he was hungry; or that he didn’t choose to rule as the devil offered him the kingdoms of this world just to be king for an hour or a day; and that Jesus refused  to doom mankind to the pits of hell as the devil tempted him to jump off the highest building in the world at that time and test God?"  I know I am.

So, whatever you are going through today,  think about the struggles of Jesus as he was in the wilderness.  We tend to overlook that.  Thinking that the wilderness experience is a drive to our favorite fast food restaurant, where we enter in and within three minutes we leave with hamburger and french fries in a bag, we lose sight of the author and finisher of our faith and the length of time that he went through the wilderness and what happened to him afterwards.  It could be that your wilderness is like ordering a hamburger from a fast food restaurant,  but my experience has shown me that it usually doesn't happen that way.

It would not be proper to close this column this week without passing on two or three life learned tips for those of you in the wilderness. I say life learned because I practice them. They have become a routine in my life and accompany me on my journey.

1. Remember, there is an end to what you're going through and  light at the end of the tunnel,  so even though you are rambling around in darkness, get up every morning and read the Word of God. Find one of your favorite verses and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal it to you in a fresh way.

2.Find an author who believes in the Trinity and the Lordship of Jesus Christ. One who has completed his or her journey  or one, who is still living, and read one of their books.  Sure, you don't feel like reading  in the wilderness and maybe you even hate reading but bring your feelings under your control and make yourself do it.  It is in those time of quietness that we are renewed by the presence of God.  Don't believe me? Again look at Elijah, he was in that mountain,  hiding in a cave and the LORD God asked him in the stillness, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" Elijah gave him an answer and waited until the LORD got ready to pass by.  Then  there was a mighty storm, but Elijah didn't budge.  An earthquake came but  Elijah still stayed in the cave.  It was the silence, the total silence that made him arise and go out and look and the LORD was there, ready to speak to him.

3. Find two people whom you can trust, who can keep you in prayer. People of integrity and filled with the Holy Spirit, whom you can bear your heart out to and know that they will be faithful to pray for you and with you.

4.  Finally, Fast.  Yes, I mean fast.  There are some things that come into being  or happen only through prayer and fasting.  Jesus told the Pharisees and the Sadducees when they asked why his disciples were not fasting, "that the bridegroom was still on the earth but when the bride groom leaves then they will fast.^⁠3"  The bridegroom is now sitting at the Father's right hand, so people, fasting is appropriate. You don't have to fast 40 days,  but pick aside a day if you can, where you can fast once a week, or a meal or two which you leave out of your nutritional diet and start developing this as a regular weekly routine.

The wilderness is not a fun thing. You don't wake up feeling great every morning.  Your world has been covered by dark clouds and these clouds around you are real but as a child of God, you have been given the victory, if you hold firm. 

Paul^⁠4  said it and I wrote a song about it, "If you don't stand firm in your faith you will not stand at all". So hold on a little while longer.  Jesus left his wilderness ordeal  in victory.  The Bible says that after three temptations, the devil departed from him.

 The Father did not leave him there in the wilderness.  If you read farther, “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit and news about him spread through the whole countryside.”   His Father had given him the power to do the impossible.   Don’t believe me, then look at the Word of God.  There it says,  “He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.  And he stood up to read.  The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.  Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”^⁠5  Again, I can only say “Wow!”

Does Jesus really know what you are going through?  Yes, he does. He went through it  also and because of that we are not only redeemed but can live a life in victory.  Victory will come to you and that is a promise from God. Stand Firm and Hold On!

May the LORD who is near to all who call on Him protect and keep you in His everlasting arms.

Schalom,

Pat Garcia Schaack^⁠6

 

 

¹ Derek Prince, THE DIVINE EXCHANGE, Copyright 1995 by Derek Prince Ministries International; Published by Derek Prince Ministries-International, P.O.Box 19501, Charlotte, N.C. 28219 U.S.A.

² The HOLY BIBLE, New International Version, Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

³ Mark 2:19, THE HOLY BIBLE, New International Version, Copyright 1973,1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

⁴ 1 Corinthians 16:13

⁵ Luke 4:16-19, The Holy Bible, New International Version,®, Copyright ©

1973, 1978, 1984, by International Bible Society.

⁶ All Scriptures are based on THE HOLY BIBLE, New International Version, Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

 

Moving Along On The Journey In Spite Of.................

It is a fact of life that the journey can sometimes be tiring. Waking up, dragging our feet, we fight the inevitable that is about to happen or will happen. We try to prolong the last few drops of where we are instead of getting up and moving along to where we should go. Beginning to tire, we finally accept whatever it is and lift up one foot after the other moving in the direction call forwardness.  Having forgotten that great things, great accomplishments and even deliverance from some things come not from standing still but from moving forward, we hesitate to leave  the valley to  overcome whatever it is that is holding us back from receiving the victory we so desire and will keep us moving towards that eternal light.

When I look at the Bible, I find many people who left some of  the same valleys that I have to leave and it is good to know that I am not the first one nor the last one who will  experience such lostness, confusion or fearfulness.  Moses, for example,  was in the valley for 40 years.  You may say that he wasn't, but according to Bible, God told Aaron "Go and meet Moses in the wilderness"* and when you're in a valley you are in the wilderness. In the valley, he married Zipporah, had two sons, one of them he named Gershom which means "I am a sojourner in a foreign country".**  Again, evidence that Moses was in a valley and his God-intended purpose had not been fulfilled. It is interesting, this story of Moses, because when it was time for him to leave, he did what so many of us do, find excuses to stay where we are. We adjust and become so comfortable with where we are and what we are doing, and becoming satisfied, we ignore that still small voice that is calling us higher.  

Looking at others who are laughing and enjoying life, we fear entering into something unknown without knowing the outcome and we forget that to stay on our journey we have to keep moving forward.  Moses finally realized that and went to his father in law Jethro and said, ""Let me go back to my own people in Egypt to see if any of them are still alive."*** Moses had heard the Call and his happiness was dependent upon his obedience to that voice that he had heard.

Take notice however, that Moses did not leave the valley alone.  He took his wife and his sons with him.  So many of us think leaving the valley means forsaking all and starting all over again with something new.  I am so sorry to disappoint you but that is very seldom the case.  Leaving the valley means learning to live with your decisions and choices until God has changed  it.  That is so important to know. Uprooting yourself to fulfill your God given purpose is not God uprooting you; that you taking things in your own hands.  You have to wait until God changes things, allowing him to develop a willingness in you to accept His decisions and His directions, or the fulfillment of your goal will leave a saltless, bitter taste in your mouth that smacks of unfulfillment because it was accomplished the wrong way. Look at Solomon, he is a good example of that.  At the end of his life, with 300 wives and 1000 concubines, he wrote, "What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men.  He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from  beginning to end.  I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live.  That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil-- this is the gift of God.  I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it.  God does it so that men will revere him. Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account.  And I saw something else under the sun: In the place of judgment--wickedness was there, in the place of justice -- wickedness was there.  I thought in my heart, "God will bring to judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time for every activity, a time for every deed." I also thought,  "As for men, God test them so that they may see that they are like the animals.  Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other.  All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal.  Everything is meaningless.  All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.  Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?"  So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot.  For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?". **** 

In other words, we have to develop an ear to hear and  patience to wait, until we hear the still small voice saying "it is time to move".   Believe me, an ear to hear, and patience to wait on him, until I hear that still small peaceful voice are  virtues and traits that I am still learning to master and  will continue to learn the rest of my life on this earthly journey.

I am always reminded of a word that one of my grandmothers said to me many years ago.  God knows the desires of your heart, child and if you trust Him, He will lead you to them. 

So whatever you are going through, whatever you have to face,  get up and start moving, and leave that valley. If you are afraid, start by putting a toe in the water. I used to do that when I first learned how to swim. Before jumping in, I would test the temperature of the water by putting in first my big toe and then the rest of my toes.  Often, the water was much colder than I thought, nevertheless I closed my eyes and jumped in.  Within seconds, my body began to adjust and I would start swimming to the other side of the pool. 

Again I revert back to Solomon as he said, "Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you to judgment.  So then, banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body, for youth and vigor are meaningless."*****

It is time to get going! Keep moving forward! You can do it!

May the LORD who is near to all who call on Him, guide you in all that you undertake to do the next week. So, be a blessing and blessings will come back to you.

 

Schalom,

Pat Garcia Schaack

 

All Scriptures are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version,
Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible society
NIV/The Message Parallel Bible
Copyright 2004, 2006 by ZONDERVAN 

*Exodus 5:27
**Exodus 2:22
***Exodus 4:18
****Ecclesiates 3:9-22
*****Ecclesiates 11:9-10

 

Been Learning Some Things About Consistency And Persistence.......

Been learning some things about being  consistent and persistent the past few months.  Checking out the Strong's concordance for the Bible, I didn't find that much on consistency but maybe it is because my Strong's is very old but I did find a lot about its cousin persistence.  So turning to  the Webster New World Dictionary I looked up that old fashioned word called consistence.  I say old fashioned because sometimes we consider consistency to be some kind of disease linked to boredom. Thus, to get up and go towards a purpose by taking steps to see it take place in your life  and then to keep maintaining it,  is considered out.  We would rather sit there and dream and hope that it just happens.  However, I have discovered that hoping without taking consistent steps towards whatever it is that you want to do, doesn't help to achieve it and after getting there it doesn't help you maintain it, if you aren't consistently doing whatever it took to get you there. You need both, to do and to maintain or you'll  end up right where you started, at the beginning, still hoping. 

Consistency towards achieving a goal brings about continuity. It is  defined as "holding always to the same principles or practices". Continuity is the glue that holds a person who is consistent together.  It forges together   a connected continuous flow.  It's a series or successions that are  unbroken, coherent and whole as Webster states it.  It is  actions that you do no matter what.    If you do them today, then  you do them tomorrow. Regardless of what your external circumstances may look like, you continue doing them.  

As a Christian I have had problems with that. You see sometimes I start doing something that I know deep within  I am called to do and right in the middle when things are going good I take a break and stop doing it.  Before you know it, that what I had planned to achieve has become a thing of the past. It lies there, somewhere in my closet, unfinished.   Having allowed  a little bit of praise from others  or  my own satisfaction at how far I have come lull me into a state of contentment, I slowed down  and forgot that you have to keep on doing what you were doing to keep moving forward.  

Anything that has changed in my life has demanded consistency.  When I think back on when I stopped smoking, and that was some years ago,  my success started the moment that I refused to put  a cigarette I had in my hand in my mouth and light it up. That was an action that followed my decision and that decision was glued together with consistency. Each day, I got up saying consistently to myself this is another day and I will not smoke.   Every day I was determined not to pick up another cigarette. Consistency and continuity kept hammering at me.

Persistency on the other hand is sticking with it. I keep at it until.....and that means until the mastery of it deepen within my soul and whatever has it grips on me becomes an alien to me.  Achievers are people who are persistent. It doesn't matter what their background,  where they have  come from,  where they have been, or what their age is.  They put it into their  minds to rise above the norm and they do it.  Colonel Sanders is  a good example  or Pastor Robert Schuller who built the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove California and many more whom I could mention.

Being consistent and persistent doesn't mean that you will not experience setbacks.  Setbacks happen to all of us.  I've had my share and they're not over yet but I've made up my mind to continue on.  Like the persistent person who is consistent in what he or she does, I try to look at  setbacks, examine them, do what I need to do to correct them if I can and keep going. But mind you, there are some things that you cannot correct, you just have to  keep going.  If we could ask the Apostle Paul he would probably tell you  "you have to learn to live with them".  As Stephen was killed, he stood there as people laid their coats at his feet watching them stone him to death. Paul couldn't change the fact that he had stood there and let that happened so he had to learn to live with it and put it behind him.  Writing to the Philippians, I believe he is speaking from the heart when he wrote  in Philippians 3 "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me. 

If the Apostle Paul could do that then we can too. Therefore, let us embrace those qualities of consistency and persistence and move on.

Have a great weekend everyone.

"May the LORD who is near to all who call on Him accompany you in all that you undertake to do".

Schalom,

Pat Garcia Schaack