Still Waiting......

Waiting is SO hard for me.  I really do not like to wait on anything.  I am of the opinion that ALL traffic lights that are red should be for someone else!  I also believe that I should have my own private lane for driving.

When I was a kid growing up in Alabama there were wild plum trees growing next to our house.  I love plums!  Spring would roll around and the plum trees would be loaded with beautiful while blossoms. It was at that time I knew that it would not be long until I would be filling my pockets and my stomach with plums.  After the blooms were gone tiny plums would appear, then the waiting would begin.  I don’t remember exactly how long it took for the plums to become eatable but I do remember what would happen if I rushed to eat a green plum before it became ripe! (Don’t worry; I will not share the details!)
 
Have you ever taken a bite of a pre-ripe, still green plum?  I have.  The taste is an explosion of bitterness!

The older I get, the more God is teaching me to wait on Him.  My problem: I do not like waiting.  God is teaching me right now.  I am learning as much about the past as I am about what God wants for my future.  For instance, take this plum thing.  God brought back this memory of my childhood to illustrate some occurrences in my life when I rushed ahead of Him.  There have been some times in my life when I rushed ahead of God, without waiting for a clear “go ahead.” (Green plum city!)  It was during many of those times that I experienced a hardship, a disappointment, a further delay, a sadness or even chaos.  In many cases, God blessed me anyway, but I wonder what could have happened if I had simply waited on God to complete HIS work.  I admit it – I bite into green plums! However, God is teaching me to wait on the sweet juicy nectar of His will!

Isaiah 40:31 – HIS strength.
Psalm 27:4 – Courage
Psalm 37:5-12 – Trusting and feasting on my inheritance in Christ
Galatians 2:20 – Identity in Christ

Just like the plums of my childhood.  I cannot rush the ripening process.  Ripe is ripe and not one day before.  So I wait because I know what rushing ahead of God can produce.  I wait because I do not want to miss the sweet, sweet nectar of His will and blessings for my life!  I am waiting.

To be continued……..

Still Waiting on God to Blink.....

Yesterday I wrote a blog post called “Waiting on God to Blink!”  Today, I am still waiting.  You see there are some major hurdles in my life right now.  There are the usual ones that everyone faces, but I have some unusually big hurdles to jump.  Yesterday I closed out the blog by saying that “GOD CAN DO MORE IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE THAN I COULD EVER DO IN A LIFETIME OF TRYING.”  So here I sit waiting on God to move the mountains or give me super strength JUMPING POWER!  

Proverbs 3:5-6 are some of my most favorite verses in scripture.  It goes like this: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” (NKJV)  The part of these verses that always gets me is the “lean not on your own understanding” part!  This is the place where trust and action meet up with each other and test our willingness to “rest” in Christ!  My pattern of action is to panic and jump into short term fix mode for anything that is not going right in my life.  Always, always, always when I jump in REACTION  instead of quietly RESPONDING I find myself in trouble. I do not mean that I get in trouble with God, I simply mean that the natural course of panic always leads to hasty decisions and regrets.

So here I sit today.  I am still waiting on God to blink!  I’m waiting on a major breakthrough.  I know that God can do more than I could ever think of imagine.  I know that He is working.  I just want Him to blink! I am trusting in HIM.  I am not trusting in my feelings, emotions or even what I “think” – I am trusting in God! I am listening to God and following the path of Psalm 37 – “Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the Lord; Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass. 6 He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. 7 Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him…..”

So I will keep you posted on this blog.  I promise, you will be the second to know when God blinks! Debbie will be first, of course!!

BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR A NEW SERIES OF VIDEO MESSAGES FROM THIS BLOG!!  I appealed to my Facebook friends to help out with this new series.  I asked them to share the ONE word from the scriptures on which they would love to hear a short teaching.  I am compiling the list and will begin here next week!  It will be in video format.  Please pray for me as I prepare these 5 minutes messages and launch them into Cyberland! 

Thanks for joining me here today!!  Share, tweet and FB this blog to all of your friends.  Let’s spread the GOOD NEWS of God’s grace and truth to as many people as possible!

"Waiting on God to Blink"

Recently after a long week of sales calls but no sales for our magazine, Coastal Christian Family Magazine,  I found myself very tired and discouraged.  After talking with Debbie for a long time we both decided that I needed to take the rest of the afternoon and “rest.”  So I went back to my office feeling beat up and discouraged. BUT! I love that word!  But, what happened was a real blessing.  It was a time of renewal, trusting, resting and understanding who God is and who I am!

I took the first few minutes to “not think.”  My little ADD brain was about to explode and I just needed to stop thinking about anything.  It took a while but when I was ready, God began to speak through the quietness, the stillness and the “rest” of the moments that followed.  It was almost as if I could hear him saying “Come unto me Tim – you are tired and heavy – I will give you rest.”  (Matthew 11:25-30). 

In the hours that followed something wonderful happened.  God began to bring scripture to mind that I had been memorizing for a couple of years.  I heard Matthew 6:33, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.”  I could hear Him saying, “But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount of with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)  Then of course Psalm 37:4—6, “Trust in the Lord and do good……feed on His faithfulness…….He shall bring it to pass.”  Read the whole passage – it will bless you!!

As I meditated on these verses I began to feel my spirit rising!  The clouds of worry and discouragement dissipated and God began to me again through the remembrance of Jeremiah 32:17:  “Ah, Lord God!  Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You.”  He just stretched out His arm and created planet earth!  When I thought about it for a minute or two, again, God began to show me a thing or two.  This thought came coming to me over and over again: “God can do more in the blink of an eye than I can do in an entire lifetime of “trying!”  I had been focusing on what I thought was impossible and not on the one who makes all things possible!

So what happened?  What happens next?  The answers to those questions are simple:  I don’t have a clue.  So here I am today waiting on God to blink!  What am I going to do while I am waiting?  I’ll let you know next time.  HINT:  Read Proverbs 3:5-6

Cranking it Back Up!!

Yes! It's been a while, but I'm cranking the blog back up.  It's time to get serious about getting God's Word out there and sharing HIS life with thousands of people on the internet.  So I need for everybody to subscribe to this blog and share it with your friends, etc.

Thanks for your support!! 

Jeremiah 32:17

Against the Wind

I have started working on my body again.  It seems that after all of that hard work I did a couple of years ago that I have now gained most of the weight back.  It seems to be a never ending cycle with me. 

I joined a free gym at a local church which is about 5.25 miles from our house.  This morning I decided that my cardio work out would be to ride my bike to and from the gym.  It’s a beautiful day here: sunny and about 70 degrees.  I started out on my journey and made it to the gym just fine.  It was actually a very relaxing ride.  There are not many hills in Panama City Beach.  I worked out at the gym and was looking forward to riding back to the house.

I started the ride and crossed Front Beach Road.  Then it happened.  I turned the corner.  I turned into a very strong wind.  Suddenly I was pedaling much harder.  I kept going.  As the wind blew stronger it became increasingly harder to move forward.  “I’m Not Giving Up” was playing on my iPod.  I pedaled harder.  Then I started talking to myself. (I have heard that brilliant people talk to themselves!) “Tim, you can do this.  Put one foot down at a time.  That pain in your legs is nothing.  Keep going! Don’t give up!”

I spent much of my life trying to live the Christian life the same way. I pedaled harder and harder and it seemed the harder I pedaled, the slower I moved.  There was something wrong. It was like pedaling against the wind; the wind of self sufficiency!  Then it happened. I turned the corner.

God brought me to a place of brokenness in my life.  I am so thankful that I turned that corner! It was during that time that I discovered what it was like to live with the wind at my back:  the wind of the Spirit of God always moving me where HE wants me to be.  Oh, believe me, I have turned and gone against the wind of the Spirit.  Every time I move against the will of God, live according to my flesh, or just plain rebel against what God wants for me, I experience going AGAINST THE WIND – and it just wears me out!

God designed the Christian life so that the wind blows from behind.  Our job is to go with the flow of the wind of the Spirit.  Life will be less stressful, more enjoyable, and abundant!  (John 10:10)

Isaiah 40:29-31

New King James Version (NKJV)

²⁹ He gives power to the weak,
And to those who have no might He increases strength.
³⁰ Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall,
³¹ But those who wait on the LORD
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.

But............

This morning in my time of prayer and studying God’s Word, God brought me to a passage of scripture that really touched my heart.  It started with one of those little words of the Bible that I love so much! (The word “and”) Then it moved to one of those little words that I absolutely love:  BUT.  That’s right I love the word BUT in the scripture!  It usually has some bad news in front of it followed with the good news of a promise from God.  Here it is…..1 Corinthians 6:11 says, “And such were some of you.  But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified I the name of the Lord Jesus by the Spirit of our God!”

Paul has just listed a bunch of sins in the previous verses – BUT!!  Isn’t that a beautiful word?  Paul just refuses to lump those who have been WASHED, SANCTIFIED AND JUSTIFIED in with all of those other sinners!  He is not minimizing their past because he says that some of them used to commit those sins.  BUT now………they are WASHED clean of any sin they ever committed, they are SANCTIFIED (made saints of God) and are declared righteous, and they are JUSTIFIED!  Yes they committed those sins but they are not identified by them anymore because with God it is JUST AS IF THEY NEVER SINNED AT ALL!!  (Justified).

Now….don’t you just love the word BUT???

Playing Tag with the Waves

I love to walk on the beach. I love to watch people walk on the beach. I love to watch kids walk on the beach. I love the beach. This morning when I was walking on the beach I found myself playing tag with the waves. My goal for this morning was to walk down the beach at a brisk pace and return to the house without dying. I've gained most of the weight I lost in 2010. As I walked I tried to stay close to water but not get wet. However, there were a couple of times when I was unsuccessful the the water came up over my shoes and soaked my feet. It's January and the water was very cold! As I kept walking, it occurred to me that life on this earth seems a lot like those waves. Sometimes life just surprises us. Sometimes that's good and sometimes that's not so good. But there is one thing for sure in all of this. God knows what He is doing! He is never take by surprise. Sometimes He even lets the waves of life crash over us so that we get a "wake up call!" It is through those wake-up calls that we are given the joy of seeing God work. Through HIS work we then get to know HIM better. I am so glad that God is "for me!" He loves me! He rejoices over me with singing! And yes sometimes He even lets a wave give me a wake up call! "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV)