I Haven't Had My Jesus Today...

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love my coffee.  People often ask me how I handle all the challenges of being a momma to 7 kids and I always answer, "Coffee!"  I have even considered asking my doctor if there was a way we could start an IV drip of the delicious energy giving drink sometime around 4 am daily.  The only thing that has stopped me from asking is that I could not taste the coffee if it was given intravenously. 

A few summers ago my family and I spent a week camping.  Yes, it was the hottest week of the entire summer. Yes we were TENT camping, and yes we had tornado like winds that nearly carried all of our belongs away.  It was, after all, a Graham vacation!  

When we first arrived it was just the girls and I. We set up camp in the last twinkling minutes of daylight and just did the minimum.  The next morning came, way too early, and we ate a quick breakfast and set out enjoying all the nature around us.  Shortly before lunch time, one of my children looked at me and said, "Mom, you haven't had your coffee yet today have you?" 

Now I am not sure what made him think this, (I was my normal jovial self I am sure) but it must have been bad because he offered to go buy me a cup from the camp store with his own money!  

            I was thinking about this memory lately and it struck me, my kids, and probably others can tell when I haven't had my coffee, but can they tell when I haven't had my Jesus?  I have recently taken up the challenge by my friend and Speaker, Rhea Briscoe.  Her challenge comes out of the passage in Isaiah 50:4-5,

"The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary.  He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed.  The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears; I have not been rebellious, I have not turned away."  

 

After sharing that passage she challenged me to ask the Lord to wake me up every morning to spend time with him.  As a momma of 7, pastor’s wife, ministry leader, and now radio co-host, I really struggle with finding time for my quiet time with Jesus.  So I took Rhea up on her challenge, and do you know what the Lord did?  He woke me up?  No kidding, but me and my stubborn heart needed a bit more convincing.  You see, the first morning He woke me up at 5 am….I said out loud, “Oh you’ve got to be kidding me,” and then I put the pillow over my head and went back to bed. 

            Morning 2 was not much more successful, again at 5 am the Lord woke me, and this time I tried bargaining with Him, “Lord, do you remember all those kids you gave me?  Well they suck the life out of me and I am too tired to get up this early.”  You know what HE said?  “Come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest…” (Matthew 11:28) Just like Him to use scripture!  It is at this point that I would like to say that I got right up but shamefully I did not.  I am so glad that God does not give up on us, even though we are so stubborn. 

Morning 3, I at least managed to get out of bed, but promptly laid on the couch, offered up a few meager prayers and went back to sleep.  But hey by Morning 4, I was starting to realize that God was going to keep waking me up, so maybe He had a plan.  I got up, sat at the kitchen table this time, and had one of the best quiet times I have had in a long, long time.  And you know what?  Not one of my kids woke up until I was finished, or should I say until God was finished? 
            You know what else?  I am certain people saw Jesus in me that day and have in the days that have followed as I walked in obedience to my wake up call.  2 Corinthians 3:17-18 makes this promise,

“¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸ And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”  

But, we cannot be transformed into His glory unless we spend time with Him.  I can always tell when my kids have been around certain people, because they begin to talk, and act just like them.  In fact, I have a friend who spent her early years in the south, down in Louisiana.  She came back here to Illinois when she was in grade school, and if you talked to her you might still be able to pick up a bit of her southern speech.  However, when she spends any amount of time down south, she comes back sounding like she never left!  We are a reflection of the people we spend time with.  I want to be a reflection of Christ, so I best be spending time with Him! Beth Moore puts it like this in her Bible study, Breaking Free, “We glorify God to the degree that we externalize the internal presence of the living Christ. A life that glorified God is not something we suddenly attain.”   We cannot show Christ on the outside if we do not have Christ on the inside!  So, as my friend Rhea says, “I hope I look more like Jesus today than I did the last time you saw me."
            As I wrap up, I want to challenge you to spend time with God, get in His word.  I promise He will show up if you do!  Hey, maybe you can even ask Him to wake you up?  Just be careful, because He is a God of His word, so if you ask, He will answer!  And the next time someone asks me how I handle being the momma of all these kids, I am going to say Jesus  instead of coffee!  But hey, maybe they won’t even ask because they will just see Jesus oozing out of me and know that He is the reason!?  Here’s hoping!

Easter is...

I wrote this poem back in high school but I think it is still relevant:

Easter Is....
Colored eggs and candy
The Easter bunny too,
Are all a part of Easter
And what it means to you

But these aren't important
when you think about it all,
Christ up on the cross
To save us when we fall.

Imagine how it must have felt
To see that empty tomb,
The doubts they must have had
But what else could they assume?

Putting the pieces together
Seeing their mistakes,
The guilt they must have felt
Knowing Christ had died for all their sakes.

But now Easter is a happy time
To rejoice and for all to sing,
For Jesus Christ has risen
Our Eternal Lord and King!

Sacrifice

Oh goodness it has been rough lately! My niece and nephew, who live in my home, have begun the process of returning to my brothers and my heart feels like it is breaking into a million shards of glass. Some days it is literally all I can do to drag myself out of bed and face the day. Today is one of those days. The kids have their first overnight with my brother, which is the first time they have ever been away from me for a night. To make matters worse, I am not convinced that they will be safe or well cared for while they are gone. My brother's track record is not so great. I had to leave for work today after peeling my niece off of me and telling her it was going to be okay. As I wiped her tears (and my own)and kissed her goodbye, it took every ounce of self control I had not to grab her and run.

With all of this going on, God and I have had quite a few conversations. Well in the mist of my latest fit, God reminded me that He has been where I stand. In fact, He had to send his son, Jesus, away from home too. He had to send him to a cruel, unsafe place. A place where He knew that his son would not be well taken care of. He had to hug and kiss Him goodbye and then go to work. I bet He wanted to grab Him and run the other way.

Instead, God sent his son to live amongst imperfect people. And not just to live amongst them, but to die a cruel and painful death FOR them. This Easter season, like never before, I understand the depth of that sacrifice, how hard it must have been for God to knowingly let go of Jesus.

My heart is breaking, but how much more did God's heart break? But in the well known words of John 3:16, "God so loved the world" (that is you and me, that is my niece and nephew....that is even my brother), "that He gave his only son" (an amazing sacrifice) "that who ever believes in him (Jesus) will have everlasting life." So God endured this heartbreaking pain so that you and I could live forever in Heaven with Him. This Easter season, don't miss that truth of that, don't let Jesus death be for nothing.