Peace

Imagine you are in the woods in the winter time.  It is still and quiet.  The lack of noise heightens your senses and you can hear the falling snow hit the earth, like soft breath escaping.  All you see is the dark wood of the trees against the white of the snow and small footprints where animals have been busy during the day, but have long since gone to their homes for the night. It is calm and you are at peace.

I can see this scene so clearly in my mind it is as if it were a memory from my past.  This is what I think of when I think of peace.

This world is so chaotic and some days it feels like I am being bombarded from all sides.  I get knocked down and get up only to be knocked down again.  Do you ever feel that way?  

God has promised us in Psalm 29:11 that He will give strength to his people and will bless them with peace.  Peace that is not of this world but beyond our understanding. Peace that satisfies and calms our exhausted heart and souls.  How do we get this peace?  Isaiah 26:3 says, “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you”.  Our peace is shattered when our gaze shifts from God to our circumstances.  We get knocked down and our eyes immediately look to see what hit us.  That’s normal.  That’s O.K.  It is when we keep our gaze on the object of our pain that it becomes a problem.  We lose sight of God and who he is and we lose our peace.  

In high school I was in a music ministry with a young man named Scott.  He was an accomplished concert pianist by the time he was in Jr. High and I was in awe of his concentration when he played one of his pieces.  Scott was so focused and tuned in to the nuances, notes, and phrases of the music, everything around him faded away.  To test this, I would try to distract him and see if I could get him flustered and lose focus.  I couldn’t do it.  I am convinced the building could fall down around us and he would not miss a note or beat as our bodies lay crushed under the debris.  That is the kind of dedicated, building-fall-down-around-me-and-not-lose-sight type of focus I want to have on God.

When the temptation to focus on the darkness, struggle, pain, and uncertainty comes, cling to the Word of God that remind us that He is Light, Provider, Healer, and never changes; good Father, Rock, Promise Keeper.  Darkness, struggles, pain, and uncertainty don’t stand a chance with our Almighty God, even when it seems the building has fallen down around us.

“Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you.” 2 Thessalonians 3:16

Lisa

Abounding in Hope

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Romans 15:13

When you believe strongly in something you have confidence in it.  You are not easily swayed.  You build your life around it. It makes me think of Linus, from the Peanuts cartoon, and his strong belief in the Great Pumpkin. He was so confident that the Great Pumpkin would appear that he gave up parties, trick-or-treating, and endured a lot of ridicule from his friends as he spent a long, lonely, cold, night in the pumpkin patch.  Unfortunately for Linus, he put his trust and confidence in something that was not real, but that is not the same for us.

2 Corinthians 3:4-5 says, “Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God,” God is sufficient and we can believe Him to be who He says he is for God is not only the object of our hope but He is also the author.  In Strong’s Greek concordance, the Greek word for hope is elpis which means, expectation, trust, and confidence. The product of that belief in God as our hope is joy and peace.  This is not the type of peace and joy that is determined by our circumstances, but is filling, satisfying, and ever-lasting.  As the Holy Spirit directs our gaze to the perfect One the result is not just a little bit of hope, joy, and peace, but an abundance of it!

Ask the Holy Spirit to shift your focus from the circumstances around you to the One who gives you hope that is satisfying and abundant.

Abounding in hope with you today,

Lisa

Count it ALL Joy?

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,” James 1:2

Count it all joy? Surely there must be exceptions, right?

Have you heard the phrase, “Choose Joy!”?  Maybe, like me, you’ve said it countless times especially in trying circumstances.  With fists held high, voices raised, we smile and say through gritted teeth, “I’m choosing joy today!” as someone has spilled their third glass of milk on top of the unpaid bills that you can’t pay while the dog runs through the house with muddy paws. You summon all your will power and positivity to produce a feeling that is just not present in the moment. So, is it possible to do that? Choose joy?  It’s an emotion, right?  I can’t control how I feel.  Can you? And, what is joy anyway? John Piper defines it this way, “Christian joy is a good feeling in the soul, produced by the Holy Spirit, as he causes us to see the beauty of Christ in the word and in the world.”  I love this definition. I think one of the key phrases in that definition is “produced by the Holy Spirit”.  Galatians 5:22 says, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control”.  Produced not by us, but by the Spirit.

The Spirit produces this joy in us as he causes us to see the glory and beauty of Jesus Christ through the Word of God.  My joy, my feelings, are the movements of a soul in awe of my Creator Father.  So, in a sense, I can choose joy.  I may be feeling frustrated, worried, and angry, and I can’t control those feelings when they hit me, but I can control the action that will ensue.   I can steer my thoughts to Father and who He is, and when I do, I can’t help but see things through His perspective.  I am thankful to have milk to spill and bills to pay because I am reminded of Father’s provision in all things even when that provision seems slow.  Why? Because Philippians 4:19 says my God will supply my every need. I am thankful for the child God has entrusted to me even though it seems that blessed one can’t keep liquids in a cup if their little life depended on it.  What a privilege to help shape a life toward a relationship to Father! And, muddy paws?  Nope.  I’ve got nothing.  It just is what it is.  A big muddy mess.  However, when the Holy Spirit steers my thoughts toward the beauty of Christ, even mud takes on a whole new perspective because when I look at that mess in comparison to what Christ has done for me, it becomes less, He becomes more, and joy is produced in my heart. 

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” (Romans 15:13)

Choosing joy with the help of the Spirit today,

Lisa Ruffenach

Worship Director at Faith Baptist Church

dynamicworshipexperiences@blogspot.com

Who's Going My Way?

“For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, ‘In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.’ But you were unwilling,” Isaiah 30:15

I like doing things my own way.  Sometimes that is good, but most of the time if I had just followed the counsel of others or the directions on the box, things would have turned out so much better.  Many times, I hear God’s voice speak to my heart, “Lisa.  We can do this my way or your way.  The outcome is going to be the same, because my will is still going to be accomplished regardless.  So what's it going to be?”  There is implication in this conversation with Father that my way is just going to make things harder, drag things out longer, and more pain than necessary may be involved.  In spite of all the warnings, I still have a tendency to go my way.  Just like Israel, I am unwilling. How about you?

Israel, after being set free and in process of being led to the Promise Land, decided they wanted to do things their way.  What did that look like? They made plans to go back to slavery and bondage because the way God was leading them seemed scary, painful, and they were sure they were going to die.  I feel like God was saying to them, “Listen up.  We can do this my way which leads to life and promise or your way which will certainly lead to slavery and death.  What are you going to choose?’ He lovingly reassures them in Isaiah 30:15, by saying (my paraphrase), “Forget about your plans and rest in mine.  That is what is going to save you.  Depend on me and my power and goodness.  Quiet your fears and scary thoughts and keep peace in your minds.  You can have confidence that I will do what is best for you.  And when you do this, it will give you strength.  You will not be shaken.” Wow. Seems like a no-brainer, right? 

Now Israel, did decide to trust in God’s plan and continue on, but throughout the whole journey it was a forty-year battle of the wills that sometimes reminds me of my own journey with the Lord.  

So, whose way are you going to choose?  Yours, where you return to pain and misery because that seems safer than an unknown path? Yours, where you stubbornly stay where you are, refusing to move forward, because you are sure where you are at is safer than the other option? Yours, where you are certain there is a short-cut to the promised land which, in reality, may end up taking you an allegorical forty-years? Or God’s way which will be perfect no matter what the road looks like?  

I am so thankful we have a God that when we choose to linger in the desert longer than necessary because of our stubbornness and self-reliance, He walks it with us.

Choosing His way today, 

Lisa Ruffenach

Hope and a Turkey Parade

I was born in Worthington, MN and lived there until I was six.  Worthington is a strong farming community and every year around Thanksgiving the town would have a Turkey Parade since Worthington was known for its massive turkey processing.  There were two parades.  The regular one and one just for the kids to participate in.  My parents signed me up and God used a Turkey parade to teach me an important lesson.

I was around 4 or 5, and the theme for the parade was children’s stories. Prizes were given out for the best entries. My parents dressed me as the “Little Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe”.  My dad built a big shoe that fit on my wagon complete with window cut-outs.  In the windows he rigged a system that when I pulled my wagon, my dolls that were placed in the windows, would wave.  I know!  So cool!  I was a “shoe-in” for first prize!  (get it?  Old Woman in Shoe? Hm…well, anyway) I knew I was going to win!  I had my heart set on it.  There was no doubt!  Oh, how I hoped and hoped.  I may have even envisioned myself receiving this magnificent prize. But, alas.  It was not meant to be.  My neighbor, Todd, his younger brother, Scott, and his cousin won first prize that year as “Little Bo Peep” and her sheep.  Really?  I mean, my dolls WAVED for pity’s sake!  (I’m still a little bitter)

I know I was young, and it took years for the whole lesson to sink in, but I learned that there are just some things you can’t rely on to happen, not matter how much effort you put into it. There will always be obstacles and trials. Someone will disappoint you, things fall through. However, I am so thankful that my hope in God is secure and for sure.  I John 5:13-14 says, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.” I love the line, “that we may know”. (emphasis mine) There is no doubt, there is no rival “Bo Peep” and her sheep to steal it away, just pure confidence that it’s going to happen.

As we prepare to celebrate Christ and His birth we have secure hope.  It’s not finger-crossing, but confident expectation that God will fulfill His promises to us.  

Waiting and full of hope with you,

Lisa 

Thanksgiving and a Dog Named Libby

“The Lord is my strength and shield. I trust him with all my heart.  He helps me and my heart is filled with joy.  I burst out in songs of thanksgiving.” 
Psalm 28:7

Are you bursting out in thanksgiving today?  Is your heart filled with joy?  When I read this verse, I cannot help but think of Libby, a dog I used to pet sit for. I don’t know what it was about her, but for a dog, she could really be inspiring at times and on one particular morning, she inspired my worship.  

I was pet-sitting Libby so I brought her to work with me for the morning.  Her reaction to the car ride was definitely a burst of thanksgiving and heartfelt joy.  She bounded out of the house as fast as her legs could carry her and leaped into the van.  I had the window down enough for her to stick her head out and that’s when pure joy came over her.  With her tongue hanging out and her ears flapping in the wind, I am convinced that if she could talk she would have shouted, “This is the BEST DAY EVER!”  I was very tempted to stick MY head out the window to see if the same amount of joy would flow over ME!  Oh to be satisfied with just the wind blowing in our faces!

Well, if the window thing doesn’t work for you, think about the verse above.  There is so much packed in to that small verse to inspire our worship of God today.  For starters, God is our strength.  He is strong enough for us.  He will shield us and protect us.  We can trust him with all of our heart because He never fails.  He is our helper and source of true joy.  When I am reminded of these things and all of those times when God followed through on those promises, I can’t help but burst out in worship and thanksgiving! Like Libby, when she sticks her head out the car window, all my senses are heightened and the air on my face is more than a breeze. It becomes an adventure!  

I pray that God’s Word will bring you pure joy today and that the promises in the verses above stir your heart to worship Him.  I also hope that you will see that inspiration for worship comes from many different things.  We just have to keep our heart and eyes open.  Sometimes it will even be in the form of a black dog named Libby enjoying the wind on her face.

With much joy and thanksgiving!

Lisa

Sacrifice

“Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High.” (Psalm 50:14)

“…giving thanks is a sacrifice that truly honors me.” (Psalm 50:23a)

“The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit…”(Psalm 51:17a)

“I will sacrifice a voluntary offering to you; I will praise your name, O LORD, for it is good.” (Psalm 54:6)

Sacrifice.  Hm….Now what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word, “sacrifice”? For me, I immediately think of the animals brought to slaughter in the Old Testament to atone for sin.  Or I think of reluctantly giving something up that is precious to me.  Well, God showed me another side of sacrifice that I would like to share with you.

I looked sacrifice up in the dictionary and got the standard definition: 

1. The surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim.  

2. The thing so surrendered or devoted. 

3. A loss incurred in selling something below its value.

No wonder we view sacrifice as painful or hard at times when words like surrender, destruction, and loss is in its definition.  Sacrifice comes from the Latin equivalent to “sacri”=holy and “facere”= to make.  In other words to make holy or something that is devoted or dedicated to the service of God.  Now, that doesn’t sound so bad, so I dug a little deeper.

The Hebrew word for sacrifice is “Korban” which means to come near, to approach, “to become closely involved in a relationship with someone for this is meant to be the essence of the experience which the bearer of the sacrifice undergoes”.  I don’t know about you, but the English word we use and understand does not do justice to what the Hebrews defined as sacrifice.

I realized that this whole time I was dwelling on the negative side of sacrifice (surrender, destruction, loss) and not realizing that my sacrifices are actually giving me so much more than I could ever possibly give; a close relationship with God and all the benefits of knowing Him.  Now, even my most heart-felt and joyous sacrifices seem so puny and piddly compared to what God gives us in return.  It humbles and shames me to think of those times when my sacrifice was reluctant and stingy. I was more focused on what I had to give up than what God was wanting to give me.

I realized that God demands our sacrifice (to come near, approach, become closely involved with Him) out of love knowing that we will receive more than we desire and comprehend.  Wow!  What a wondrous, glorious, love this is!

I pray that as you offer up your sacrifices to God today, you would experience his presence and that you would fully understand his love for you.

Viewing sacrifice in a whole new light with you,

Lisa

May I Have Your Attention, Please?

“What am I to do with you, Ephraim? 
What do I make of you, Judah?
Your declarations of love last no longer
than morning mist and predawn dew.
That’s why I use prophets to shake you to attention, why my words cut you to the quick: To wake you up to my judgment blazing like light. I’m after love that lasts, not more religion. I want you to know GOD, not go to more prayer meetings."
(Hosea 6:4-6 MSG)

I am reminded again how much God desires our full attention; our whole heart; a relationship based on love.  He wants something lasting for us.  He wants us to spend more time with Him than in settings that merely reference Him.  I had to ask myself if I was pouring as much time and energy into my relationship with God as I was in church meetings, social events, reading Christian fiction, keeping up with social media, etc…

Let’s think on this…We wonder why we sometimes struggle in our faith walk, when instead of filling up our time in pursuit of God, we fill it with a lot of empty things.  It’s kind of like wondering why we’re hungry all the time as we chomp on chips and pop.  We eat deeply of empty, non-nutritional calories instead of life-giving food.  Now, I’m not saying chips and pop are bad, playing Farmville on Facebook is detrimental to your faith, or going to your third church leadership meeting of the week is going to take away some jewels in your crown. I’m just wondering if we’ve become unbalanced.  I don’t believe God is asking us to spend our whole time in Bible study, but I do wonder if we are as concerned about missing quality time with him as we are about getting to our 3-4 weekly church and/or work meetings, getting our kids to their ball games, and making it on time to our social events.  Do we make sure we carve out, schedule, and plan for times completely devoted to him like we do our other activities?  Or do we just fit him in when we have extra time? Do we spend as much energy on getting to know our Lord as we do learning how to please Him or serve Him.  “Action steps” without “love-motivation” is religion, not relationship.  With all of my heart and I don’t want to have Christ whisper in my heart…

“Your declarations of love last no longer
    than morning mist and predawn dew…
I’m after love that lasts, not more religion.
    I want you to know GOD, not go to more prayer meetings.”

I can't help but think of the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42.  Martha is running all over willy-nilly serving the Lord while Mary sits at His feet.  Which one did the Lord say was doing the right thing?  Yep, Mary.  “Come on!”, you say.  “Martha was working her fingers to the bone serving the Lord!”.  A great picture of what God truly desires.  Heart and relationship first; service out of love for Him second.  

John MacArthur says it like this: “…what Mary was doing was better still.  She had ‘chosen the good part’ (Luke 10:42).  She had discovered the one thing needful:  true worship and devotion of her heart and full attention to Christ.  That was a higher priority even than service, and the good part she had chosen would not be taken away from her, even for the sake of something as gracious and beneficial as helping Martha prepare Jesus a meal.  Mary’s humble, obedient heart was a far greater gift to Christ than Martha’s well-set table. This establishes worship as the highest of all priorities for every Christian.  Nothing, including even service rendered to Christ, is more important than listening to Him and honoring Him with our hearts.” 

I pray for myself, and you, that when life gets out of perspective and balance, we take the time to be like Mary and just sit at Jesus’ feet; worshiping Him as we absorb his wisdom, love, and presence.  

Worshiping with you today,
Lisa

Broken Cisterns

“…My people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this, and shudder, be very desolate,” declares the LORD.  “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

In the above verses God is telling Israel through Jeremiah that they have forsaken Him, the fountain of living waters and made their own source of water; cisterns that they think will supply all their need for water, but they are broken and useless.  They have traded true Glory for their own.  

Unfortunately, just like Israel, I do that too.  I get impatient.  I think I can do way too many things on my own and I become satisfied with my own version of what God wants to give me. For some reason I think my way is good enough.  It should get me by until God decides to get around to me in my timing and doing it my way.   What do I get for my efforts?  Broken cisterns that hold no water.  Emptiness.  Nothing that fulfills or satisfies.

Yet, though I am rebellious, impatient, and self-centered, and storm mountains I’m not supposed to storm, I take hope from Jeremiah’s words to Israel.  “My wayward children,” says the LORD, “come back to me, and I will heal your wayward hearts.” (Jeremiah 3:22a NLT) My hope is that God will extend that same grace to me; his other rebellious child.  Ephesians 2:1-10 fulfills that hope:

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” 

I pray that these verses will give you hope and help fuel your worship of the One who extends us grace out of great love for us.

“Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. (Acts 20:32)

Trading in those broken cisterns with you,

Lisa

Prayerful Expectations

I journal almost every day.  Even on days when I honestly can’t think of anything to write.  There are days I can’t wait to fill up the blank page and other days, I just stare at it and struggle to come up with even a sentence.  So why do I write on those days?  Because it’s good discipline for me.  I struggle with discipline and routine and I thrive on variety and change!  Though change is good and adds spice to my life, discipline and routine are the things that help me to grow and be the best at I can be.  So, those days when my small journal page seems like it is 50 feet long, I purposely put my pen to paper. 

I start out with a lot of “surface” stuff (the weather and what I ate for breakfast) and then I find as I write that my words are coming from something deeper.  I realize there is a lot more going on inside of me then I thought.  I also find it is God’s sneaky way of getting me to open up to him.  He knows that I tend to stay on the surface with our conversations a lot of times so as I write about the weather and last night’s casserole, He starts to speak to my heart and the next thing I know, I’m telling Him things I wasn’t even aware of myself and that page gets filled up really fast.  My potentially useless journal entry becomes a heart-felt prayer/conversation with my beloved Father.  I imagine a sly smile on His face when that happens. 

Prayer is like that for me at times.  I don’t always feel like having the conversation, but when I choose to discipline myself to spend some precious moments in prayer I get so much more than I put in and that puts a smile on MY face.

Please spend some time with God right now.  I can guarantee that you will get so much more than you were expecting!

“By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life.”  Psalm 42:8

“May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.” Psalm 141:2

Blessings,

Lisa