Why Purity?

Wikipedia defines purity: Purity is the absence of impurity or contaminants in a substance. The term also applies to the absence of vice in human character. Thefreedictionary.com: Freedom from spiritual or moral defilement; innocence or chastity: "Teach your children ... the belief in purity of body, mind and soul" (Emmeline Pankhurst).
There's a lot of hype about abortion and Planned Parenthood right now. A lot of feelings and anger running amuck.
My son and I recently memorized these verses and I think they are appropriate....James 1:19-20 19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.
See, I think we are currently reaping what we sowed. And I don't think being loud and angry at this juncture is conducive to our desired end result. I think it is sin. And sin is always a heart issue!
Growing up I wasn't taught about purity. Sure there was a conversation about saving sex for marriage. But, in health class and sex ed both in highschool and college even though they mentioned abstinence birth control and STD's were given a lot more in depth review.  The hit show Friends was coming on the scene condoning living together and cheapening purity further. Because of a lack of purity teaching (and other factors) the world had a lot bigger voice in my life. We cannot allow the TV to raise our children and then be mad at the outcome. Because Hollywood nor the liberal media are fighting for purity.
It is our job to invest in the next generation, our job to fully accept the spiritual well-being of our children.
With this in mind I work very hard to instill purity in my children. I teach my kids daily that they are created in the image of God. I teach them what Jesus' death on the cross meant/means. I teach them what sin is and what purity looks like at their age. I have opened the lines of communication about our bodies and sex. J and I are careful about what we watch on TV, where we hang out and what we allow in our lives/hearts/minds. With my daughter I've already begun teaching her to dress and act modestly. All of these things we do so that when they are 13 we don't have to start from scratch. Hopefully they will be ready to just keep building their solid foundation. I don't want my kids to have to wonder and thus just follow the crowds aimlessly...I want to build them up and teach them to know the Lord themselves so they will know how to make decisions.
I don't know what the future will hold and I'm sure I am failing at many things...but I hope that having a game plan and strategy will reap an intimate relationship with Adonai.
We have to teach our children why we believe what we do and why we say no to certain things. I don't want them to fear legalism....I want them to yield relationship. Luke 6: 45 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

Relevant

The word relevant has been bouncing around the cavern on my shoulders for several months now. How relevant is the Bible to you? How relevant is your spiritual journey to you? Is it at all connected to the decisions you make or the beliefs you hold? Does your relationship impact every facet of your heart, soul, mind and spirit?
The Bible says:
2 Timothy 3:16-17New International Version (NIV)
¹⁶ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the servant of God^[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.


2 Corinthians 5:17New International Version (NIV)
¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:^[a] The old has gone, the new is here!

Romans 12:2New International Version (NIV)

² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

 

I am thinking of the word relevancy and how it correlates with our foundations. We all have world views, things we were taught and caught while growing up: behaviors, beliefs, opinions...

Worldview

What is your worldview? This is probably not something most of us sit around thinking about and yet it impacts every decision and action that you make in life.  Thefreedictionary.com defines worldview: The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world. 2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or group.

 

I guess I’ve been pondering this because of all the stuff going on in our worlds…abortion, medicine, elections, Muslim curriculum, common core, ever present attempts to fuel a race war, Hollywood’s continued push to desensitize us to sin…the list is really endless! I don’t really want to even talk about any of these issues specifically. I just wonder what our worldviews really are.

 

For instance: if you are a Christian (we’ll define this as someone who loves, honors and obeys the Lord, Adonai) do you really believe the Word to be true, living, and useful in every moment of your life? do you believe the Holy Spirit dwells within you to help you become more like Christ and to lead you? Is your belief in the Lord and the Bible and His Spirit unvarnished? Or is it tainted/influenced by the world that we live in? Or do you believe in the Lord and karma? Or the Lord and self? Or the Lord and America? Or the Lord and power? Or the Lord and my doctor? This list is also endless…

 

God has really been working hard and heavy on my mind and my heart and my worldview and challenging it to the very core. I just wonder what our world would like if we allowed the very depths, the entire Truth to totally saturate and challenge everything that we hold dear. I would like to share the way that God has been redefining my worldview, but I want you to understand that I am not saying you should find my worldview, although I do hope that you will find my God and that you will totally and blindly adore and honor Him and maybe, just maybe His light will shine brightly from my heart like a beacon straight to Him. I am a military brat, from quite the career military family, raised to be a patriot and having experienced life in another country and culture, the spirit of entrepreneurship and pulling oneself up by ones bootstraps runs deeply, the American dream taught and demonstrated. Now, I find myself at a place where I’m not an American. I am a Christ follower. I don’t want to pull myself up and be another rags to riches story. I am a Christ follower. I don’t pledge allegiance to a flag. I pledge allegiance to Adonai. This is not my home. I belong in Heaven. I was not created long for this world. I was created in the image of God with eternity in mind.

 

Do you remember the Israelites that walked in circles in the dessert for 40 years? The chosen people who witnessed the 10 plagues 1^st hand, they saw the waters part and the Egyptians swallowed up, they received the 10 commandments on stone from God Himself, they saw the beauty on Moses’ face when he came down from being with God (and much much more, hopefully you get my drift). They made golden calves and worshipped idols and later begged God for a king to rule them. And God said He was their King and they continued to beg for a human king to rule them. And well, if you’ve read the Bible you know that did not turn out so well.

 

I am not saying to be a rebel. I am not saying not to support America or to vote. I am just saying that we should look different. I am a rebel. And lately I have noticed it rearing it’s ugly head over and over again. Some of our cultural/Christian/church traditions make me crazy. You don’t have to look far to figure out that many of our traditions are dead and serve no value and yet we hold onto them with tightly clenched fists. They have absolutely no Biblical backing and yet they have become like law. I am not interested in what we call church anymore, I am bored by our traditions and our version of wandering aimlessly through the dessert. I am interested in looking different. I want the church (not the one on every other corner but the actual church which the Lord defines as His body of believers) to look different. I want the statistics to reflect people who have done a 180 turnabout. I don’t want to just be a people that darken the doorstep of churches 3-4 times a week. I want to be part of a movement where the church is the church. I wonder what our country would look like if we hushed our mouths and bruised our knees. If we stopped with the soapboxes and the boycotting of all things of the world that we are supposed to live in and we fell to our knees. Again, do we really believe that the Holy Spirit is God? That He is alive and welcome here in America? What would happen if we stopped bashing presidential candidates like the rest of the world and just let the Holy Spirit do His thing? Do we believe what the Word says in Romans: that there is no authority in place that He has not allowed. Are we willing to look different? My worldview is still a work in progress and I am definitely a sinful saint. I am blunt and hyper and often wrong. But I am so grateful that Adonai loves me and continues to fight for me and humbles me and transforms me more and more every day.

 

Many many folks think we are living in the end times and that Jesus is soon returning. I still believe that we will not know, He is coming, but no one knows the day. Nevertheless, let’s live lives that say: I am ready for your return Jesus. And since He wants that none should perish, how about we show the world all the love He has given us. It is easy to love a loveable person, but let’s love those that are more difficult. Please remember from where you came. I have probably written it before…but my favorite story in the gospels is of the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her alabaster jar of perfume and her tears and her long hair (LK 7:47). And Jesus told the naysayers: those who have been forgiven much, love much. Let’s remember how much we’ve been forgiven and that any and all sin separates us from God! We are all in such desperate need of a Savior!

Shiny

Last year I had this feeling, I couldn’t quite put it into words, but it was there nonetheless…I felt like I was running on fumes, like I was surviving on my fat reserves. I kept standing on the same scriptures, the ones that God had used in many, many ways in my life and marriage and family. I kept ending up in the same favorite passages. It was like my comfort zone, like a favorite blanket on a chilly afternoon. I am so glad that I had those fat reserves, so glad I had those passages to stand on. But, aren’t you glad our God is more than we can put in yesterdays box? His mercies are new every morning. I can spend my lifetime learning and loving Him and still not know but a glimpse of Who He is.

Have you ever seen the progressive sanctification in your life? Can you look back at your maturing and see things that you thought were so absolute and that you knew so well and now you think, oh that was so childish, I hardly knew what I was talking about. God, Abba is constantly challenging us to trust Him in new ways, to commit to Him in new ways and to grow in our love and faith and forgiveness. Can you look back at a major, catastrophic event in your life and say Thank You Jesus! I have been looking back over the 1^st 7 years of our marriage and I have been thanking God for the hell we came out of. I’m not brave enough to say I would willingly walk it again, but I am so grateful for all the fruit that came out of it and for our fully restored marriage.

I have been reading, studying, memorizing His Word for many years…I went to a Christian College, then to Bible School, worked in full-time ministry for years and yet I feel like I can never read enough of His Word, but it had become comfortable, complacent, boring, if you will.

I am reveling in this word ‘New’ right now. He is doing a New thing in my heart! A New thing in my walk! He is going to stretch me and grow me into this New thing that He has in mind. Never has the living, breathing Word of God, been more refreshing than the last few days. Twice in the last week it has literally jumped off the pages and wowed me out of my complacency. His Word is indeed active and alive and sharper than any two-edged sword.

I do not know what this New thing is. But here is what I do know. I don’t like to be bored and I am ready for the challenge. I don’t imagine it’ll be like a fairytale, I imagine it will be dirty and hard and ugly and glorious all at the same time!

Gypsy Sabatical

This move has been incredibly hard. Harder even than I’ve been able to process the last few months. So hard in fact, that I told a friend the other day that this gypsy is ready to hang up her gypsy shoes because moving and starting over with friends, activities and church has become a lot like work.

The hard part was not the lack of employment. For some reason, to have faith in that area was easy for me. My Father is the owner of the cattle on a thousand hills. I never doubted His Provisions…not that the filling out applications and searching for work was fun, but I knew He had a plan and that it would line up as soon as the time was right. And it did. Jason really likes his job. There’s room for advancement, his boss is a nice guy and willing to show him more than is currently required so that in the future there’s room for advancement.

Even though I knew that the move to ND was never supposed to be permanent, I threw myself all in. I let go of all my quiet, reserved inhibitions and made some deep and true friendships in the short time that we were there. God restored our marriage and as a family we grew leaps and bounds. But letting go is harder than just moving to a new town. Letting go of the expectations that things will be the same and being willing to embrace the ‘new’ that God has for us is very, very hard. I have been exhausted and off kilter for weeks. Every day I seem to be learning a lesson that I can’t yet put into words.

It is beautiful here! The people are offering more than just surface deep southern hospitality. They have genuinely embraced us and welcomed us in. In this park where there are 7 permanent campers, we have become like a family. We have family meals together on Sundays, we visit like the neighbors that we are, we have made friends. We visited a church the last two Sundays, which we think is the one. And yet, still there is something missing. More and more I see it is me. This move is not going to be like the 1^st part of our adventure and I have got to let go and embrace what He is store for us on this leg of our adventure. I have got to let go of the attitude that this is temporary and must open myself up to whatever He is up to, so that He will let the floodgates open. It is a sin to have faith in one area and to block off another from Him altogether.

Isaiah 43:19 Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

Yes, Adonai! I see. And I am ready to listen and to embrace whatever is in our path on this new adventure. I will open myself up and be ready to dive into new friendships!

Humble in the Making

Isn’t pride wonderful…instead of keeping a steady flow of blogs coming, I shut down until after a trial to write what I’ve learned instead of buckling down and being transparent during. Thank God that He is faithful even when I am not. This has been a season of testing and sifting for our family and a time for us to walk out the prayer I started praying last fall: that we would walk by faith and not by sight.

Despite an earlier post on FB that we were moving and that J had found a job, we are still at the beautiful campground in Garrison that we are calling home in this season and unemployed. Thank God for my man that is not afraid of work and for his talents in so many areas. There has been a steady stream of side jobs that have kept the coffers from being totally bare. We are learning to trust the Provider instead of the provisions, which I think is a lesson that will put us in good standing when our dreams are realized.

This campground has a large herd of deer that run freely, some even succumb to being handfed, but they are really little better than goats, because you have to make sure you put anything valuable up at dusk find it chewed up in the morning; it has a family of giuneafowl that are pretty but loud and have made a nest in the tree next to our camper which leads to the trees that are everywhere; there is a spring fed pool here that used to be the spring used for bottled water in the area, beautiful wooded hiking trails and wonderful, kind and generous neighbors. This place, even if it is a temporary respite from the hustle and bustle of life, has truly been a gift.

The kids are enrolled in school, and while they enjoy being around the kids, neither one wakes up ready to go to school. Mostly they want to stay home and homeschool and be with us. It is my hope that they are learning much during this season from us being happy and full of smiles and faith even amidst lack of steady employment. If we can just give them a legacy of faith and not following the herd, then I will count it great joy!