Stairs that lead to miracles

Kelley HuntLeave a comment

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Sunday’s sermon was about Daniel and I can’t stop thinking about him.

You know the story.  King Darius has been tricked into making a law that would hand down a death sentence to any man or woman who prays to anyone or anything other than the King.  Daniel hears the news.  His response is simple.

He goes upstairs, opens the window towards Jerusalem and prays like he has done three times a day, every day of his life.

What an understated moment in Bible history!

Daniel is faced with a horrible execution of unthinkable violence and he just does what he always does.   It sounds so unspectacular, so uneventful.

But it really isn’t.

It is a glimpse into the secret life of a man of God, just before he receives his deliverance.  We are made privy to the backstory, to the secrets behind the miracle so when the miracle comes we understand.

My youngest is learning to drive.  He will be safe on the road when the mechanics of driving a car are automatic to him so that he can handle unexpected situations without having to think too much.

And so it is with me.

The enemy of my soul dreads the day prayer becomes my automatic response to difficulty.

He knows there is a place of victory available to me when God’s presence and His Word become non-negotiables.  He knows that when I no longer believe the lie that discipline is legalism, I am on the way to a powerful, overcoming life.

And it can start today.

When I feel too busy, I can pray.  When life is good and I have nothing to worry about I can pray.  When I don’t feel like it, I can open my Bible.  I can slowly, daily wear out the carpet that leads to my prayer spot.  I can keep going until prayer is like breathing and God’s Word has become the place I go for my answers, without exception.

You see, disciplines are slowly grown.  There are no shortcuts or microwaved entrees when it comes to habits and character.  Eugene Peterson calls it a ‘long obedience in the same direction’.  What a beautiful description of following Jesus every minute of every day.

Because most of the time following Jesus looks somewhat ordinary.  It isn’t, of course, but its miraculousness can be hidden within our daily grind.  We get up, meet with Him, worship and commune with Him and then we cook or type or iron or change diapers or draw buildings or run companies.  And we do the same thing the next day and the next.

When small problems and troubles show up, we remind ourselves to do what we always do. When disappointment arrives, or fear or betrayal, we just do what we always do.  If something happens that we don’t understand, nothing changes.

We climb those stairs and open that window and tell God He is all we need.  We listen for His voice.  We turn our eyes away from circumstances and towards the God of promises and faithful, loving care.  We decide to believe He is good.  We allow His Word to comfort and redirect and change us.  We raise our expectations of the miraculous and flex our faith muscles.

We remind our hearts that God is very, very big and lions and kings are very small.

And then when a big crisis hits, there is no big decision to make.  It has already been made.

I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back.

 

 

 

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Tethered to goodness

Thinking today about escaping puppies and wandering souls.

Kelley Hunt2 Comments

 

2014-05-20 06.42.11We didn’t know there was a gap in our hedge.

Our previous labrador, Rudi, have never discovered it.  But three days after we took ownership of a six-month-old puppy named Buddy, he found it.

It was an unusually warm spring morning and having let Buddy out into the garden, we were enjoying coffee in our pyjamas.

The doorbell rang and it was our lovely next door neighbour with Buddy in her arms.  While we had been relaxing, Buddy had escaped next door, gone in through her back door that was open, up the stairs and right into our neighbour’s bed!  I was absolutely mortified!  I still blush when I think about it.

Unfortunately, it was so much fun that Buddy decided he would regularly visit his new friend and because our boundary is a hedge instead of a fence, every time we fixed one gap, he would find another.

In the end, there was only one solution, a very strong tether.  Every time Buddy was playing unaccompanied, we would tie him to a tree so he couldn’t escape.

Tethering is a very effective solution for wandering.

In one of my favourite hymns, we find these words,

Oh, to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be
Let that goodness like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to Thee
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart, oh, take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above

Every time I sing that song, I think how painfully true it is of me. Like a natural reflex, I suffer from an innate predisposition to wandering.

My thoughts wander.  My desires wander. My schedule and my plans wander.

My minutes and hours and days wander regularly from my Heavenly Father to pretty much anything else.

It frustrates and embarrasses me.

Why can I remember movies and magazine articles but not Sunday’s sermon?

How on earth do I get to the end of the day without making time for Jesus but I have never, ever forgotten to eat or get dressed or check Facebook?

Why is it so hard to focus when I am reading God’s Word or praying?

These lyrics make an interesting suggestion, though.  They suggest that God’s goodness is our fetter.  A fetter is a chain that was used to bind prisoners around the ankle.  It prevented escape, just like Buddy’s tether.

What a beautiful picture.

God’s goodness is the ultimate antidote to wandering. 

Not rules or responsibility or religion but only the goodness of God keeps us content enough to stay close.

So, one answer to our propensity to wander off is to constantly, in every way possible, remind ourselves of the unmatched, unrivalled goodness of God.

Every time, in the midst of busyness and distractions, we take a moment to remember how good our God is, we are tethering our heart to His.  We are ensuring that there is only so far we can drift away from His presence and His will.

With less than five weeks to go to my daughter’s wedding, I have to put this into practice daily.  Otherwise, my thoughts will be consumed with ribbons and glue and Pinterest pins and to-do lists and I will begin to believe that small, earthly things are really important and big, eternal things are unimportant, just as long as I find my wedding shoes and the florist gets the right shade of roses.

It is a battle we fight every day.  It is the battle for our hearts.

And our secret weapon is the knowledge of how good God really is.

So, whatever we are doing today, we can make worship the theme tune.  Just turn on some music, sing the words, believe the words, and live the words, even while driving the car or folding the laundry (or 120 orders of service!).

Find scriptures and quotes about our good God, decide they are true and display them where you will regularly see them.  Today I have put a little reminder by the kettle because I certainly need that truth as often as I need caffeine today.

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If you struggle to believe and trust in the goodness of your heavenly Father, may I suggest Bill Johnson’s book, God is Good.  It is a life-changing study of the character of God that will tie you tightly to Him as you understand the depth of His love and the certainty of His goodness.

Try making it a habit every day to write down three things that you are thankful for.  Ann Voskamp says in her book, One Thousand Gifts,  ‘The real problem in life is never lack of time.  The real problem of life – in my life – is lack of thanksgiving.’  That is because when we stop thanking God, we soon forget His goodness.  The next step is wandering away, searching for goodness elsewhere.

It is a funny thing but Buddy never tries to run away when we are in the garden with him.  When he is enjoying our presence, there is nothing else that can compete.  He knows we are good.  He knows we are his source of food and play and petting and walks.  He just forgets sometimes.

It is the remembering that keeps us.

Today, whatever you are doing, determine to remember how kind and loving and good our God is.  Remind yourself, in every way possible of the truth of the unchanging character of Yahweh.

Stop pulling.  Stop straying.  Stay close.

An abundant, joyful, purpose-filled life is only found in the presence of our good, good God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Staying close

What my dog teaches me every day.

Kelley HuntLeave a comment

IMG_20160526_074014915John chapter 15 is a favourite chapter of mine.  In this passage, Jesus invites us to move in closer.  He invites us to abide.  The Greek word used here means living, staying, remaining.

There is nothing frantic here.

My Labrador, Buddy, sleeps all day under my husband’s desk.  If Buddy could be on his lap he would be.  He gets as close as he can to his master and then he just stays there.  However, when Buddy goes for a walk,  he does not stay.  He runs off, sniffing everything in sight, chasing squirrels and birds.  He is with my husband but he is not abiding.   If he hears his name he will come back, only to run off again.

I see myself in both these pictures.

But with all my heart I want what John 15 is offering me.  I want fruitfulness, not withered branches.

I want the kind of joy that fills me up, gives me strength and blesses those around me.

I want Jesus to call me his friend.  I want to know what He is up to.  I want to partner with Him in His plans for this earth.  I want to be right smack in the middle of everything He is doing.

But first, there is John 15 verse 5 where Jesus lovingly reminds me that without Him I can do nothing.

Perhaps the key to abiding is believing that is true. 

When I become convinced that without God’s presence, power and provision I cannot live this life, then I will seek Him. When I am desperate for wisdom I will go to His Word.  When I really need answers I will pray.  I will seek and knock and remain and there will be no time for chasing squirrels.

When I know that every single thing I need is found in Him I will spend time with Him. I will sit close and listen and love Him and let Him love me.

 

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Beautiful buildings

Kelley HuntLeave a comment

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‘It takes wisdom to build a house, and understanding to set it on a firm foundation; it takes knowledge to furnish its rooms with fine furniture and beautiful draperies.’ Prov. 24:3-4

I don’t know if you have ever worked on a building project.  It is all-consuming.

Eighteen years ago this month, my husband and I bought an ugly house on a pretty street.  It needed to be completely redone but we saw the potential for our growing family and so we took a leap and embarked on years of redecorating, building work, dust and dirt.

And, this summer my brother and his wife finished a monumental project.  For three years they managed the building of a new medical clinic in Mexico and it completely took over their lives.  They are incredibly proud of the end result but so happy to be finished!

Building a clinic can teach you a lot about life.

That is because there are so many darn decisions!  Some are really, really important and some are not and you have to know which is which.  Some decisions take a lot of thought and some just need to be made quickly so you can move on.  Sometimes those decisions have a knock-on effect that you didn’t anticipate. Building projects of any kind can have tricky junctures that need to be navigated and problems that block your forward motion until you solve them.

And so it is with our lives.

Proverbs 24.3-4 beautifully reminds us that we dare not built without God’s wisdom, knowledge and understanding.  It is above our pay grade.  

In Exodus 35.31 we see that the craftsmen working on the tabernacle needed supernatural wisdom, knowledge and understanding.

Proverbs 3.19-20 tells that creation was formed using wisdom, knowledge and understanding.

If you look up the meanings of wisdom, knowledge and understanding you will see definitions like skilful, shrewd, insightful, intelligent, cunning, aware of the facts, thoughtful, sensible, practical, well-fitted and stable.  

Like Proverbs 24.3-4 so beautifully describes, we are all building things. We are building marriages and families and ministries and careers.  We are helping our children build their futures and faith-walks.  We are constructing relationships and characters and legacies every minute of every day, either consciously or unconsciously.

These precious projects need insight, skill and thoughtfulness.  They cannot be thrown up or they will fall down.  Foundations need to be laid well, structures need careful planning and layouts have to practically work or they are no good.  There is so much to think about, how do we manage it all?

We read in Ecclesiastes 4.12 that there is a strength in the number three and I believe there is a durableness to our lives when we look for our wisdom, understanding and knowledge from three places –

God’s wonderful, perfect Word,

really great advice from good people

and the personal promptings of the Holy Spirit

Now, we all have our natural tendencies.  Some of us are quite independent and so we look to God’s Word and the leading of the Holy Spirit but we are not particularly interested in advice from others.

Others of us thrive on advice from books and friends but don’t take the time to seek God’s will for ourselves in His Word and in prayer.

And some of us read and follow the Bible but haven’t yet discovered the whispers of the Spirit that can help us apply Bible verses or advice for a specific situation in a really personal way.

I think that if we neglect any of these, it can make us weak and unbalanced.

Marriages and friendships, families and ministries all need a foundation of God’s way of doing things that we find in His Word.  You cannot scrimp here because it will determine the strength and stability of the finished product.  There is endless wisdom for every area of our lives found within the pages of the Bible, just waiting to be discovered and applied.

But our building projects also need inspiration.  Like the dozens of home decoration magazines I devoured when I was working on my house, we can be creatively stimulated by others.  New ways of doing things, different perspectives and clever insights are invaluable.  So, read good books and articles.  Listen to Godly advice and implement it. Ask questions of those around you who are building well.  Let wise counsel be a gift in your life that sparks solutions.

And then let the Holy Spirit breathe life into it all.  Listen to His sweet voice as He gives you insights that will transform situations with the resurrection power of God.  Allow Him to show you not just how to do things but when to do them.   Let His voice guide you personally.  Listen and follow.

Every day we are building things.

Don’t build alone.

Allow wise people to come alongside you and help you.  Let God’s Word inform the design so that every room looks like Him.  And, eagerly welcome the still small voice of the Spirit of God.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Opinionated wedding planning

Kelley Hunt1 Comment

 

DSC_1069In Ephesians 5.15-17 we see that living carefully is equated with wisdom.

No surprises here.  The dumbest thing I can do is waste my precious, God-given life on things that don’t matter, right?

Today, as I was thinking about wisdom, I read verse 17 in the Amplified Bible and this phrase jumped out at me, ‘do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish’.

In verse 15 we see the opposite of this when it says, ‘Live purposefully and worthily and accurately’.

If I want real wisdom, the ability to know what is the right thing to do and how to do it, then I have to overcome the barriers to wisdom, one of which is thoughtlessness.

I have written about thoughtlessness before and how a busy and fast-paced life can often cause it.  But I think there is another more subtle contributor to my thoughtlessness and it is a strongly held opinion.

The problem is that if I have a strong opinion about something, I don’t feel the need to revisit it.  I just re-enforce my idea, occasionally sharing it on Facebook with others who agree with me.  There is no room for listening to another point of view or gaining fresh input or even recognizing when I am wrong.

Now, when I talk about opinions, I don’t mean Biblical beliefs.  I am not talking about something I have studied in the Bible and wrestled with and prayed about and then made part of my belief system.

I am talking about all the other stuff.

I am talking about the ‘I just really think…..’ stuff.

I am talking about my politics, denominational preferences, parenting style, cultural bias and personal choices.

I am talking about the way I live my life and the way I think everyone else should live theirs.

I don’t think there is anything more humbling than actually doing something that you have theorized about for a long time.

Like for instance, parenting.

Or marriage.

Or church ministry.

Or really anything that is hard.

It is so much easier to be an armchair pundit than to actually play in the game.

Honestly, I feel like my forties have been one long journey of replacing my not-so-great ideas with God’s loving wisdom. It has been humbling, embarrassing and very painful.

And it has been so very freeing.

You see the danger is that when I form opinions about what I will never do or what I will always do, I run the risk of thoughtless behaviour.

I risk automatically living life in a certain way, without ever questioning it.

Being thoughtful means lifting my opinions to God and letting God’s Holy Spirit breathe on them.  Then the useless, papery chaff just blows away and the wheat remains.

God, in His great mercy and love, if I let Him, gently removes anything that has no value to my life and He leaves what does.  He blows away my foolish assumptions so that only truth remains.

And actually, I can’t have both anyway.  I can’t hold onto my opinions and also seek God’s way of doing things. That’s why the Bible tells me that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.  I can’t ever really be wise unless I value God’s perspective above my own.

I cannot ask for wisdom with a closed hand or a closed heart or a closed mind.

Here is a small example from my real life today.   I am planning a wedding for my daughter.  It has been exciting, fun, and hard.  And as I look back over the last 8 months I can see that my biggest problem has been my strong opinions about how weddings should be done.

I dread to think how many times over the years I have voiced my wedding theories, saying how things should be done, what I like and don’t like, how the day should go, how the service should be, etc.

Those words haunt me now because it just isn’t that simple.  Weddings are complicated and there are many people to please as well as budget limitations and practical considerations.

So, one by one, my ‘non-negotiables’ have gone out the window and compromises have been made.  And one by one my silly opinions, my judgements, my ideas have been replaced by God’s perfect wisdom for this wedding for this family on October 6, 2018.

And that is so much better, isn’t it?

Because I can’t have both.  I can’t have my way and God’s way.  I can’t have God’s answers if I worship my own.  There is no space for the whispers of the Holy Spirit in life that has it all figured out already.  

Living life carefully means even my strongly held opinions must not be off-limits to my loving God who sifts and divides and replaces what is useless for what is true and good.

So I choose to let Him in today.  I will let Him walk around my life and touch and restore and replace all that is not of Him.  I will let my wonderful God show me how to raise kids, spend my money, love my spouse, plan a wedding and how He has uniquely designed me to change the world.  I will learn to let God guide my politics, my doctrines and my decisions.

And then, most powerfully of all,  I will learn to give others the freedom to do the same.

Instead of opinions, I want only the voice of the Shepherd saying, ‘Here is the way.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The life-changing power of a good question

Kelley HuntLeave a comment

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A few years ago, in the days between Christmas and New Years, I came across a blog post that changed my life.  The house was a mess, the chocolate had all been eaten and the weather was disappointingly grey but this article was doing the rounds on Social Media and it caught my eye.

It was written by Theologian and Seminary Professor, Don Whitney.  It was entitled, ‘Ten Questions to Ask at the Start of the New Year.’

The post began with the verse from Haggai 1.5 where God’s people have neglected their relationship with God.  God uses the prophet Haggai to challenge them to, ‘Consider your ways.’

Don then encouraged us, readers, to do the same as we faced a brand new year and he suggested 10 questions that could help us consider, think about, re-evaluate and recalibrate our priorities for the months ahead.

The questions were genius but very searching.  I printed them out and hung them on my fridge and they really impacted me as I discovered the life-changing power of the right question at the right time.

Here are Don’s New Year’s questions.

  1. What is one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?
  2. What is the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?
  3. What one thing could you do to improve the quality of your family life this year?
  4. In which spiritual discipline do you want to progress this year and what will you do about it?
  5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life and what will you do about it?
  6. How is the most helpful way you can strengthen your church this year?
  7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?
  8. What’s the most important way you will, by God’s grace, make this year different than last year?
  9. What is one thing you can do to improve your prayer life this year?
  10. What single things that you plan to do this year will matter most in 10 years?  In eternity?

I took the time to answer the questions honestly and I was faced with some challenging truths.  It highlighted how often I waste my time, ignore the most important areas of my life and how utterly unfocused my spiritual life was.

So I made changes, many of which are still a part of my life.  The results were transforming.

One of the ways that we can generate wisdom in our lives is to learn how to ask ourselves the right questions and then asking God for the grace to give honest answers.  It is an incredibly powerful tool and it can produce the kind of truth that sets you free.

A good question cuts through nonsense, pretence and excuses.

Just think how many times Jesus used questions to provoke thought and change or to expose hypocrisy.

We can expose hypocrisy and double-mindedness in our own lives the same way, with a really good question and a truthful answer.

And as the years have passed, I have added some more questions to my repertoire.

Here are a few.

  1. What is the enemy’s number-one scheme in my life right now?
  2. What lies do I believe about God?  About myself?
  3. Is there any area of my thinking that is habitually unBiblical?
  4. Do I have the wrong perspective on a difficult situation in my life?
  5. Why did I just overreact?
  6. How do my own personal weakness most impact my relationships?
  7. What are my blind spots and how do I usually excuse them?

These are tough questions and the answers will not be immediately forthcoming.  These are questions that need to be regularly asked in God’s presence with a sincere and listening heart.  

They are questions most of us never ask ourselves but they are questions that will change how we live life for the better.

Don’t be afraid.

Draw close to the God who loves you, trust in His goodness and dare to ask some questions.  The answers, like everything from God, will be full of love and grace and power and life.

 

 

 

 

 

Wisdom’s value

Kelley Hunt1 Comment

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The verses that originally inspired this blog are Ephesians 5.15-17.

‘This causes you to realise that you will have to be very careful about the way you live; to be wise, not foolish.  Make use of every opportunity to please God by the way you live, especially as there is so much evil in the world around you.  How much better to understand what God wants of you than to live in a sinful, foolish manner.’  (The Truth Bible version.)

I keep a bookmark there in my Bible so I can revisit this passage regularly, gleaning all the goodness from it for my life.

Today my eyes settled on a phrase.

‘Be wise, not foolish.’

So often when I need wisdom, (God’s way of doing things, God’s perspective for a situation), I think of James 1.5 that tells me that if I need wisdom, I should ask God.  This is a good thing to do and I can testify to the fact that God always answers that prayer.

But it isn’t the only way to obtain God’s wisdom.  In this verse in Ephesians, we are told to be wise, not foolish. The Greek verb used here for ‘be’ means to become or to generate something.

So, it is possible to generate wisdom in my life.

I can ask for wisdom, and God loves that, but I can also live life in a way that is producing wisdom too.

This is a far less passive approach, isn’t it?   While daily asking my Heavenly Father for His heavenly wisdom, I can also be busy making the conditions of my day to day life conducive for this wonderful gift.

And the Bible is very clear what these conditions are.

Proverbs 9.10 tells us that, ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.’

Knowing God’s will for me in every situation starts with an understanding of who God is and who I am.  There is a wonderful humility that comes from knowing I have the potential, even the tendency, to be wrong about quite a few things, quite often.

 

Fearing the Lord means dreading the idea of living one minute of my life outside of God’s loving will.  It means loving His ways because I love and trust Him.

I believe that I cannot produce wisdom from a heart that is unteachable or proud or independent.  It is like trying to grow a beautiful olive tree in a bucket of cement.

When I really know God and how good He is, I will value every word He has spoken.  I will treasure every instruction and command and warning.  I will love what He loves.

Read Proverbs chapter three today.  See how beautifully God’s wisdom is described.  It is compared to gold and silver and rubies.

I wonder if, in 2018, wisdom is a bit out of fashion perhaps.  We live in times where doing things my way and figuring it out for myself are greatly admired.  We pride ourselves on not living life like the previous generation did.  We can treat their advice and input like family heirlooms we don’t want to inherit,  preferring to head down to Ikea instead.

But what about God’s ways?  Are we too independent for those too?

I don’t have a lot of valuable jewellery but I have a few pieces that are precious to me.  I have a string of pearls my parents gave me for my high school graduation and a gold locket that belonged to my grandmother.  And of course, I have my wedding ring.  These are precious to me.  They are precious because they are made beautifully from valuable materials but mostly they are priceless to me because of who they are from.

God’s ways, His Words of life to me, should be priceless.  His wisdom is like expensive gemstones, rubies and diamonds that are set in gold.

And yet, so often I think I know best and I make myself a pasta necklace like the ones my toddlers used to make for Mother’s Day.  Instead of the family jewels in my jewellery box, I wear it, admiring my independence and self-reliance.

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But the only way to cultivate Godly wisdom in my life is to value it.

When I can see just how beautiful God’s ways are compared to my human logic, I am in a good, safe place.  It is the place where I can hear what God is saying and see what His is doing and make choices and decisions that produce life.

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Summer’s rest

Kelley Hunt2 Comments

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For as long as I can remember I have been head-over-heels in love with summer.

All my vivid childhood memories are summer ones.  Even now I can remember the taste of the blueberry ice cream I enjoyed while watching ocean sunsets and the fresh corn on the cob my grandmother would make for dinner.  I can smell the pine trees that framed our Colorado camping spot and the pink calamine lotion that calmed my poison ivy rash.

One unforgettable summer we had a month-long road trip and we visited several national parks.  Each day’s driving would end in a different KOA swimming pool before I would fill a scrapbook with ticket stubs and postcards.

As a teenager, there were hot July days spent floating down the creek behind our house, baseball games and endless attempts to tan freckly skin.

Becoming a parent only deepened my love affair.  Maybe it is because I am not naturally a routine person, but I could hardly wait until my children were done with school for the year.  I just loved the lazy days of August with pyjamas until lunchtime, trips to parks and pools, and backyard shenanigans until the light faded.  No homework or school uniforms, just lemonade and flip-flops.

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This year has been unusual for the UK with little or no rain for months.  We have had weeks of humid, hot days that start before we wake up and end long after we have gone to bed.  And I have loved every minute. 

You see, my kids are all grown up and I am counting down to my daughter’s wedding in October.  My husband has been facing the toughest work pressure of his entire career.  The days are full, the emotions are high and the temptation to worry is relentless.

But there is something about summer, something about the sunshine and the long days that remind me that there is a remedy for mother-of-bride fretting.

The remedy is rest.

And really isn’t that why we love summer so much?  Isn’t that why vacations are so often the highlight of our year and our sweetest memories often involve sand and swimming and bare feet?

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It is because deep inside our hearts, we long for rest.  Not a nap or a late morning start, but God’s rest.  His rest is an inside-your-soul kind of summer where life feels carefree because daddy has got it all in His hands.  It is permission to laugh and to play and to let go of what you can’t control.

It is an invitation to enjoy being a child of God every day, in every circumstance.

We were, of course, created for that kind of rest.  Adam and Eve tasted it in the garden and they didn’t appreciate what they had until they lost it.

We know that one day we will enjoy again this God-given gift.  And it won’t be a harp playing, floating-on-clouds rest.  It will be an ‘it is finished’, death-swallowed-in-victory rest.

But what I so often forget is that this victory rest is actually available to me now, even as I sit in my garden writing wedding to-do lists and dreading my empty nest.

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When life wears me out, when the future looks scary or when decisions overwhelm me, there is a place underneath God’s wings that is forever summer.

I will find that place today, put my toes in the sand and enjoy being His kid.

 

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Its OK to stop

Kelley HuntLeave a comment

A few years ago our family decided to hike up to the top of Mount Snowdon in North Wales.  It was a beautifully warm August day and the conditions were perfect.  The path that we chose gently inclined and the scenery was beautiful.  It was all so pleasant, so easy.

243529_608306497399_1559077759_oThen our way took a turn and I found myself hiking/scrambling straight up a verticle trail.  I needed all my strength just to keep up with the others and within an hour my legs just gave out.

They felt like jelly and I couldn’t take another step without risking a fall.  At this point, a little panic took over.  My teenagers had jogged to the top already and were looking down wondering what was going on.  I could see the end of the trail and the top of the mountain but I couldn’t think of any way to get myself there.  Unfortunately, going down the mountain was also out of the question.  I was well and truly stuck.

So I did the only thing I could do, I sat down.  I drank some water and had my protein bar and laughed a little.  And do you know what?  In half an hour I was at the top.

To live life carefully in this world, we need to know when it isn’t safe to take another step.  

We need to know when to be careful with ourselves.

There are times when disappointment or loss leave us wobbly.  Shaky souls need time to recharge in God’s presence and refuel in His Word.  Life decisions can wait. This is not the moment to try and figure everything out!  Worship first and then you will be ready to walk.

Know yourself well enough to recognize spiritual and emotional fatigue so that you make time to rest and recover.

Allowing ourselves to stop means that before we know it we will be back on our feet and hiking to the top of that particular mountain.

If this is you today, if you need rest and encouragement and renewed hope, please know that it is okay to stop as long as you know where to sit.

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Tending Treasure

Kelley Hunt1 Comment

 

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As they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

My mom, Barb, and I share many qualities.  We both love to read and write.  We are deep thinkers, life-analysers and daydreamers.

Unfortunately, that means we are also both serial pot-burners.

Both of us, on more than one occasion, have left a pot simmering on the stove before leaving the house for the day.  Both of us have had the awful discovery of opening the front door and being greeted by a cloud of decimated-stew smoke and both of us have had to look up ‘how to get rid of the smell of smoke’.

So, as you can imagine, I am now an enthusiastic owner of a slow cooker, or as Americans call it, a crock pot.  This is the stew-making gadget for dummies.  I don’t need to worry about stirring or turning down the heat or leaving the house.  I just put everything in and forget about it for hours.  Perfect.

But not all of life is this simple.

In Genesis 2.15, God gives Adam responsibilities in Eden.  Notice that even before sin has entered the picture there was already important work to do.

‘Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.’ Genesis 2.15

We were created to tend.  Other translations say work, take care of, cultivate.  God created a world where humans would have responsibility.  His will is that we would know Him as our God and then partner with Him in tending to things that matter.

And by implication, we see that God has created a world that needs cultivation.  Things can’t be just left.  Our relationships, our walk with Jesus and our own hearts need to be carefully treasured and cared for.  They need our time and attention.

Like flower beds and pots on the stove, areas of our lives that we neglect can end up overgrown or burnt.

But the problem is that when life gets crazy, tending is often the first activity to drop off the to-do list.

That is because the urgent always shouts louder than the important.  Before we know it, we have neglected the areas of our lives that we know are a priority but seem to be okay.  As the saying goes, it is the squeaky wheel that gets our attention and our oil.

It is so easy to take for granted our good marriages, happy children, close friendships or a strong faith.

But, if we can learn to tend the most precious areas of our lives we will save a lot of trouble in the long run.  It is much easier to just give the pot a stir than to get the smell of smoke out of our curtains!

Take a moment today to think about what most matters to you and then give it a stir.

Hug one of your kids, call a friend, kiss your spouse.

Make time for the people that you love. Eat with friends.  Laugh with kin.

Fill your days with thoughts of gratefulness and worship.

Believe God for big things.

Pray.  Forgive.

Be generous with your time and your money and yourself.

Treasure what you have and live life in such a way that everyone around you is in no doubt about what most matters to you.

 

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