Daniel's Faith

A few weeks back I published a post stating that I was in the process of looking for a new church body to join. Good news, I found one! I'm thrilled to have officially found a new church home and this week's post is actually from last week's sermon.

The Scripture passage is from Daniel chapter 2 where King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream and asks his wise men to not only interpret his dream but tell him what the dream was. See, he suspected that they were just making up answers and so he wanted them to prove that they knew what they were talking about by telling him his dream before they interpreted it. Information, of course, that they had no way of knowing unless they did indeed have supernatural knowledge as they claimed.

Now I've been hearing this story since I was a little kid but the pastor on Sunday pointed out something I had never thought about before.

Daniel 2:14-19 "When Arioch, the commander of the king's guard, had gone out to put to death the wise men of Babylon, Daniel spoke to him with wisdom and tact. He asked the king's officer, 'Why did the king issue such a harsh decree?' Arioch then explained the matter to Daniel. At this, Daniel went in to the king and asked for time, so that he might interpret the dream for him. The Daniel returned to his house and explained the matter to his friends, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven..."

Did you catch it?

I didn't at first.

First Daniel spoke to the king and asked for time, second he prayed that God would reveal the dream for him. Think about that for a moment. Daniel is living in a land that he never wanted to go to in the first place, he's a captive, facing death and instead of giving up or panicking he takes a huge step of faith. He believes that God can and will save him from this horrible outcome and he believes it so strongly that he goes straight to the king and asks for time. Then, after that, he starts to pray with his friends that God would reward his faith.

How much faith must that have taken? More then I have quite possibly!

And yet isn't that the faith we're called to have? That instead of saying "Oh, I can't possibly make this decision without praying about it first" we're already praying about everything so when the time comes we can step out on faith and ask God to honor that step.

Now please don't misunderstand me here. When we have the opportunity to take some time and pray about important issues it's a very important step. However we shouldn't respond out of fear and call it faith. Nor should we ignore prayer right up until the moment we have to make a decision. We should, like Daniel, be praying about everything so that when we need to take a step of faith, we're prepared to and we trust God with the outcome.

So here's my challenge, take some time to practice praying all the time so that when you;re called to take immediate action, you're ready to do just that.

Forgiveness

This post was written by my wonderful mom, Teresa Kirk. I hope you enjoy it!

Forgiveness is on my mind.  Because I need to forgive some people and it’s really, really hard.  Have you ever been there?  I know it’s the right thing to do.  Jesus said if we don’t forgive others we aren’t forgiven.  I’ve been trying to forgive them, but it’s just so very hard.  

Why is it so hard to forgive?  For me, in this situation, the wrong done wasn’t done to me, but to someone I love and care about.  That person has forgiven them, but I continue to struggle with forgiving them.  God knows my heart, and this week I had to see several of those people face to face, not by my choice.  (It’s much easier to ignore them, when they live in another town and you never see them.)   Knowing I was going to be seeing them, I had to ask the Lord to give me a forgiving heart.  I was able to give hugs to my fellow Christians and at least start to forgive them.  

Unfortunately, my heart attitude still needs changed.  I still believe what they did was so very wrong – and if I could, I would make them suffer the way “we” have because of their actions.  I realized today (before Kattarin asked me to write this blog) that fortunately for me, God doesn’t forgive me that way.  How many times have I done things in ways that have hurt Him, hurt His Son or one of His other children?  Each time He forgives me, He doesn’t hold it against me.  Just because it is easy for me to avoid the people I feel wronged me, doesn’t mean I can get away with my unforgiving attitude.  If I will not turn it over to the Lord and choose to forgive, I will become a bitter, unforgiving person.  The choice is mine.  Even when I choose forgiveness, sometimes it is a process.

As I think of forgiveness, I am reminded of another time I had to forgive and be forgiven.  This time it was my children’s Granddad, my father-in-law.  He lived next door to us and I saw him daily.    Dad loved a smooth lawn; my husband didn’t care if it looked like we lived in the middle of a grass wilderness, so mowing my grass was Dad’s way of taking care of me.  Unfortunately, he didn’t always pay attention to what he mowed and one day mowed down a fledgling tree, one my children had planted.  I was angry – how dare he?  Eventually, I forgave him – sooner rather than later, as I saw him all the time.  Only, do you know what?  He had to forgive me too.  He had to forgive me for being angry with him for trying to help me.  Sometimes we don’t see the other person’s side of the situation.  Who do you need to forgive?  Are you willing to let the Lord work in your heart and change you?  I’m asking Him to change my heart attitude and to forgive as He forgave me.

Choosing to Love

This year I've chosen to write a blog post for each of my siblings. While I still have one more sibling to go I'm taking a break to write about another person who's not quite a sibling but is family. Due to the sensitive nature of this post I'm not going to say his name. Those who know him will recognize the story but I hope the rest of you will be able to draw something from it.

I'm going to call this person M, that's not even his initial but it's the one I'm using. M has had an interesting life. As kids we were close. We're not that far apart in age and we usually got along. As M got a little older he got into some bad stuff. Drinking, drugs, etc. It's been hard on our whole family and those who love him. There's no way to sugar coat that.

When I think about the people that have broken my heart the most over the years M is at the top of that list. At different times, myself and others in our family have thought "Okay, this is it, this will be when he turns his life around. This is what it's going to take." And sometimes he has, at least for a while, and then something happens and it feels like we're right back to where we started. Talk about heartbreaking.

Throughout all these years of ups and downs with M there have been countless sleepless nights and heart wrenching sobs. Sometimes I've tried to encourage others in his life and sometimes others have tried to encourage me. We've cried together and prayed together and spent years hoping together that M would be able to turn things around.

Sometimes he stops talking to the people who love him and then it's really scary because you don't always know what's happening. Other times you see glimpses of the real M underneath all the bad decisions and you find hope, then something happens and it feels like it's dashed again.

I'm not going to explain all of M's problems or the circumstances that have led him to this place. I'm not going to try to justify his actions or share my hopes of him coming back to the Lord someday. That's not the point of today's post. The point is that through it all myself and others have had to learn one of, what I believe to be, life's hardest lessons. Choosing to love.

See M isn't perfect, he's hurt lots of people through his choices. Like I said earlier, he's broken my heart too many times to count because of things he's said and choices he's made. Drugs and alcohol don't just destroy the life of the one using them, they can destroy the lives of those who love that person. Obviously my life hasn't been destroyed by M's choices but my heart has been broken. So what do you do when a person you love constantly makes bad decisions?

In this case, when it doesn't put anyone in danger, I choose to love him anyways and still be a part of his life. I've lowered my expectations so I'm not constantly disappointed when he makes poor choices but I don't stop loving him. Sometimes it's difficult because he's not acting very lovable but I choose to love him anyways. Love is more then an emotion, it's a choice and an action and a commandment.

Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors and although M and I don't live near each other anymore I'm still supposed to love him, even when he makes it hard. I do hope and pray that someday he comes back to the Lord and is finally able to deal with his problems and move on with his life but I have no guarantee of that ever happening. And although that breaks my heart I will choose to love him anyways and ask God to give me strength to continue praying for him no matter what.

Favorite Verses

Sometimes I'll be reading through my Bible app and I'll come across a verse  that I just really love. On the YouVersion app I can do a verse image that I'll sometimes share to social media, send to a friend, or just save to my phone. They're not all a new life verse for me, or my new favorite verse. Sometimes they just seen to fits whatever situation I'm in, or they're something that reminds me of a truth I've forgotten, or they stand out to me as a reminder of God's love and promises. Today I want to share some of those verses with you.

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."
Psalms 139:14

"I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope."
Psalms 130:5

"He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."
Micah 6:8

A Personal Note

I realized halfway through the day that I needed to write a blog post. Normally I would be thinking about it throughout the week but it hadn't even occurred to me. Then I logged onto the website and realized I never posted anything last week. These two occurrences made me realize just how distracted I've been lately.

You guys, let me be honest, I love writing this blog. When someone sends me a note telling me that something I wrote made them laugh, or smile or touched their heart in some way it means the world to me. However lately I've had a lot of other things going on and today I want to share with you guys a little bit about that.

At the beginning of the year I knew that 2019 would have a lot of changes. I never imagined how many. In April my roommates and I moved, by June I had resigned my position as youth director at my church and started looking for a new church to attend. I left on good terms and with the support of the church leadership. The kids in our youth group had graduated and the ones coming up were much younger. I love working with high school students, the students coming up were primarily middle school students and needed a different kind of program to meet their needs. So after a lot of prayer I made the decision to step down. Since I was already stepping down I made the decision, again with lots of prayer and advice from wise counsel, to leave and find a new church home that I could serve in.

That decision has led to several months of me looking for a new church. Finally I'm close to finding a new church home. And now another change has come up. Some of you will remember a couple of years ago when my family's business shut down. Now the company I've been working for over the last year and a half is also being shut down. So now, as I'm settled in my new house, close to finding a new church I'm getting ready to look for a new job.

There's been a lot of other changes in 2019 but those are the big highlights. You guys, my readers, are made up of my friends and family as well as strangers from all over the world but whether I know you or not, you're all important to me, extremely important. And it's because you're so important that I wanted to explain just a little bit about why I've been distracted so that posts are going up late or missing altogether. 

Thank you friends, for understanding my distraction and giving me grace. Hopefully things will be getting back to normal, or at least back to a normal level of distraction so I can post on time, very soon.

9/11 Eighteen Years

Eighteen years ago terror struck us at the heart of our country. The images are burned into our hearts and minds. The planes full of terrified passengers, the towers that once stood so tall and proud burning as people threw themselves out windows before the flames could reach them. Those proud towers toppling to the ground. The brave first responders who sacrificed their lives so others could live. The flight that went down in the Pennsylvania field so that another building and those in it wouldn't be sacrificed. 

Eighteen years ago we swore we would never forget. Each of us can remember where we were that day. Where we were when we heard the news, who we were with, what we were doing. We remember seeing the news footage being played over and over again. I was only ten years old and I still remember it like it were yesterday.

There's another part to all this though. A part that we don't often think about. We all know where we were when we first heard the news that our country had been attacked. But do you remember where you were when you first realized that the world didn't stop turning that day even though it felt like it had?

I don't remember the exact moment that life started to return to normal for me. What I do remember is picking up a birth announcement. The date was 9/17/2001 and the name was that of my youngest cousin. I suddenly realized this was the first person that I knew or would know who was born after that fateful day that our world changed. He was born just six days after that horrible day. The firefighters and others were still sorting through the rubble, the news footage was still on our T.V.'s, people were still afraid to be in tall buildings or anywhere that would draw too much of a crowd. And yet in the midst of all that death and destruction there was something good happening in my world. A child. A baby boy. My youngest cousin. A ray of hope in the darkness.

Now, eighteen years later, Lucas has just started his senior year of high school. He's no longer just a name on a birth announcement to me. He's someone I love and someone that I have loved watching grow up. He'll always have a special place in my heart because he was the tool that God used to show me a ray of light during one of our country's darkest periods.

So may we never forget the victims, the heroes, and the families of both. But may we also remember that even in our darkest days God is still in control and He will show us His light. May we always remember what that ray of light was after 9/11 and may we continue to look for it in every situation.

Sharpening

"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another."
Proverbs 27:17

I've been thinking about this verse a lot lately as I study the people that I have in my life. There are times when my closest friends are the ones that are having to speak truth, that's very difficult to hear, into my life. And that's as it should be. See my best friends aren't the ones that always agree with me. They're the ones who make me a better person.

Sometimes it's because they come to me with a concern or an issue. They have to tell me that what I'm doing is wrong, or at least heading down the wrong path. They may tell me that I don't have a right to be offended by something. They challenge me when we disagree over an issue and that forces me to study it further.

Sound annoying? It would be expect that I know that the reason they talk to me about these things is because they love me. They want me to make the right choices because they want what's best for me. They challenge me to make me think. They warn me when I'm being overly sensitive so I don't destroy relationships with those around me. That's what friends do. But it's not all criticism either. They listen to me, pray for and with me, hug me when I'm crying, they laugh with me and make sure I get a break from the craziness that is life.

And that's just it. These are the things that friends do.They sharpen each other as iron sharpens iron. Sometimes it's painful for someone to call you out on what you're doing but it's also necessary. I'm blessed to have friends in my life who help me become a better person and I hope and pray that I can do the same for them.

God has blessed me with amazing people in my life. Amazing people who help me draw closer to the Lord and become a better person. Sometimes it's a painful process but they help sharpen me, refining me as God refines my heart into gold. Surround yourself with people who will sharpen you as iron sharpens iron, as God intended and then work to do that for them. That's what true friendship is about.