I have a new book to read.

For those of you that watch me on facebook, I should tell you that it's not the book you think. For my blog readers, I'll just quickly tell you the good news a publishing company has contacted me about doing a review of one of their books. They're also offering to send extras for me to give away in a contest for you guys. I'm thrilled! And looking forward to talking with them next week.

But that's not the book I'm talking about here.

One of my favorite bloggers (C Jane Enjoy It) had a guest post this morning and the guest posted a quote: "Then the heart of Eowyn changed, or else at last she understood it. And suddenly her winter passed, and the sun shone on her. “I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun,” she said; “and behold! The Shadow has departed! I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.”

It's a quote from J.R.R. Tolkians "The Lord of The Rings". It's a series I've never had any interest in before. I watched one of the movies then got so upset at it's "To be continued" style ending that I refused to watch the rest. I've heard that Tolkian was friends with C.S. Lewis and that there is supposed to be a lot of symbolism much like the Narnian books but, from what little I knew about the series, I couldn't see the symbolism being like Narnia at all. But this quote alone changed my mind. "Then her heart was changed, or else at last she understood. And suddenly her winter passed and the sun shone upon her."

I've seen that incredible moment in my own life, and I've got some folks right now that I would love to see that moment happen for them. I serve a great BIG God who would love to see that as well, but we're just too shadowed to at last understand.

The most interesting words that the creator pens immediately after this breakthrough really catch my eye though: "I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren."

Eowyn knew what she needed to be.

This breakthrough of understanding didn't leave her wondering "what next?", she had a new path to follow. I'm NOT THIS anymore but I WILL BE that. I think too often we get into our minds and we decide what we don't like about ourselves and we decide I won't be this anymore. But never replace that thought with what we will be.

I think that's why we fail far more often than we succeed.

I haven't read the books yet. I will though, that's my very next step. I want to see if Eowyn succeeds. I want to see what becomes of her. I want to watch her journey. But most of all I wanted to write to ask this question - if not of you, then of myself - am I busy being what I will be? Or am I busy trying to not be what I won't be?

Watchman Nee - You must cease to do.

Glen over at Christ The Truth posted this from Watchman Nees book Sit, Walk, Stand.
I thought it was amazing so I wanted to share it just as he did.

“An engineer living in a large city in the West left his homeland for the Far East. He was away for two or three years, and during his absence his wife was unfaithful to him and went off with one of his best friends. On his return home he found he had lost his wife, his two children and his best friend. At the close of a meeting which I was addressing, this grief-stricken man unburdened himself to me. ‘Day and night for two solid years my heart has been full of hatred,’ he said. ‘I am a Christian, and I know I ought to forgive my wife and my friend, but though I try and try to forgive them, I simply cannot. Every day I resolve to love them, and every day I fail. What can I do about it?’ ‘Do nothing at all,’ I replied. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, startled. ‘Am I to continue to hate them?’ So I explained: ‘The solution of your problem lies here, that when the Lord Jesus died on the Cross he not only bore your sins away but he bore you away too. When he was crucified, your old man was crucified in him, so that that unforgiving you, who simply cannot love those who have wronged you, has been taken right out of the way in his death. God has dealt with the whole situation in the Cross, and there is nothing left for you to deal with. Just say to him, ‘Lord, I cannot love and I give up trying, but I count on thy perfect love. I cannot forgive, but I trust thee to forgive instead of me, and to do so henceforth in me.’

The man sat there amazed and said, ‘That’s all so new, I feel I must do something about it.’ Then a moment later he added again, ‘But what can I do?’ ‘God is waiting till you cease to do,’ I said. ‘When you cease doing, then God will begin. Have you ever tried to save a drowning man? The trouble is that his fear prevents him trusting himself to you. When that is so, there are just two ways of going about it. Either you must knock him unconscious and then drag him to the shore, or else you must leave him to struggle and shout until his strength gives way before you go to his rescue. If you try to save him while he has any strength left, he will clutch at you in his terror and drag you under, and both he and you will be lost. God is waiting for your store of strength to be utterly exhausted before he can deliver you. Once you have ceased to struggle, he will do everything. God is waiting for you to despair.’

My engineer friend jumped up. ‘Brother,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen it. Praise God, it’s all right now with me! There’s nothing for me to do. He has done it all!’ And with radiant face he went off rejoicing.”

I did the exact same thing once, radiant and amazed that God had somehow taken so great a burden of forgiveness off of me. As complicated as I've said God can be, sometimes relief comes from the simplest of actions.

Give up.

Day 10 - The Articles of the Declaration of Faith

"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentle-men and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for the Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair, C.S. Lewis

Course He isn't safe. But He's good.

"Ohh!" said Susan, "I'd thought he was a man. Is he - quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."

"That you will dearie, and make no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver; "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly."

"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.

"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you." quote taken from "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis

Explaining the complaints about "The Shack"

I was linked to this article by John Lynch from "Hungry And Thirsty".
The article is written by Mr. William Young,-author of "The Shack"- concerning the difference between facts and truth.
His book has been very popular, but a large portion of those that read it seem to come back with the review that they liked the story but it wasn't very real since the facts were messed up.
Mr. Young gives you something very interesting to think about. I almost quit reading the article halfway through - but I'm glad I stayed to the end. It's worth it.

To read the article Click Here.

Listening to someone else

I just thought I'd share this article I read this morning. It spoke to me, and it may very well speak to you. It's by G.D. Watson


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The Brides Desire: Lessons From The Song Of Solomon

"Catch us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes." (Song 2:15). This is the Bride's prayer that all the defects and faults connected with her life may be utterly removed, that she may have not only a personal fitness to meet her Lord, but also be found full of good fruit, unspoiled by blight from any earthly creature. Great, destructive savage beasts and serpents represent Satan and demons, but the fox is not such a savage beast, and especially little foxes, which are more like puppies and kittens, and full of play, for these represent not the vices of sin, but little shortcomings, little silly thoughts, or words, little negligences of prayer, of obedience, of right manners, of not doing good, little blemishes that spoil the bloom on the perfect ripe fruit.
The true saint cannot bear these little foxes that seem to other Christians so harmless, and yet they are sufficiently of the flesh to hinder the perfection of devotion, and that deep, constant communion of the heart with Christ, that marks the perfect ripening of all the graces. Though her Bridegroom is hid in those high clefts in the steep places, yet she knows He has power, through the Holy Spirit, to destroy those little foxes that hinder the full growth of the tender grapes.
"My beloved is mine, and I am His." This verse opens to us another rich thought in this Love Song, and that is the mutual ownership between Christ and His saints. This intense passion of proprietorship is universal, and belongs to God and all His creatures, even to the lower animals, who will fight for the ownership of a grain of corn. Now, when Adam fell every normal instinct in the human soul was perverted and exaggerated, hence sin has utterly filled with the passion for ownership, and made it the unspeakable curse of the world in covetousness. When we are regenerated and thoroughly purified from inward sin, this instinct of proprietorship is restored back to God, and then under the full baptism of the Spirit, and by a life of prayer, we are brought to that blessed place where we see and feel that God is our own, and especially He is our own in Christ, for it is only through the blessed Jesus that we can seize upon the living God, and appropriate Him as altogether ours. On the other hand, we belong to Christ by creation, and by redemption, and when He transforms us and fills us with Himself, we become still more His own, not only as a piece of property, but as joined with Him in His very life and graces and destiny. This expression occurs three times in this divine Song, and each time it is on a rising scale, containing a wonderful suggestion of the steps in this proprietorship, and showing that we are to sink out of the thought of our ownership, and be lost in that great ocean of the ownership which our Lord has in us, and all things.
Now, just notice how the three expressions are used: The first is "My beloved is mine and I am His," in which you notice that the Bride puts her ownership first, and her Bridegroom's ownership in her comes next. Again, "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine." (Song 6:3). Here you notice she puts the Bridegroom's ownership first, and her ownership in Him comes last, for you see the ownership which Christ has in us is far beyond any ownership we can have in Him, for we are His absolutely and beyond our thoughts. The third time, the words are "I am my beloved's, and His desire is toward me." (Song 7:10). Here you see the Bride sees nothing except her Lord's ownership in her, and that all His love and desire is toward her, and she forgets to mention her own proprietorship, or else the very thought of her ownership is lost in that sea of love where everything is sunk into Christ, and His blessed ownership swallows all things in its vastness and sacred keeping. Thus the "me", and the "my", gradually, or by distinct steps, sink away into being lost in a loving gaze upon our God, and that we do not mention our rights, or our possession, but only see that Christ is all and in all.

In a pit - underlined.

As promised, underlined passages from In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day by Mark Batterson.



"God wants you to get where God wants you to go more than you want to get where God wants you to go."

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"God is great not just because nothing is too big for Him. God is great because nothing is too small for Him either."
(Said in reference to the miracle of Elisha praying over the lost ax head and it floating to the surface of the water. 2 Kings 6)

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"The cure for the fear of rejection is not acceptance. It's rejection. You've got to be exposed to small quantities of whatever you're afraid of. That's how you build up immunity."

It's an embarrassing story to tell, but in foster parent training we were required to write down two of our greatest fears. It was only then that she announced that we had to pass our paper to someone else, who would then give us two more fears -more than likely their fears - then the instructor had each of us add "rejection" to the other persons list of fears as that would be a learned fear that foster children would quickly develop. A fear of rejection. The guy that was adding fears to my paper, quickly looked up and said "What if they've already listed rejection?" I remember, vividly, the teacher stopping and looking at me. And I thought "I'm going to fail out of foster parenting class."
I see more clearly now that some of the trouble from this past month was caused by feeling rejected by God. He's the only one I had come not to fear it from. It's one of the reasons I underlined this passage, and the very next one.

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"So what are you afraid of? What allergens trigger a fear reaction? Those are the very things you need to expose yourself to."

(In a previous paragraph he had used the example of going to his doctor who attempted to cure his allergies by exposing him to them in light doses so they could determine the root of the allergy. Solving the root of the problem would then cure the allergy.)

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"I bet David specifically prayed that God would protect his flock by keeping lions and bears away. Makes sense, doesn't it? But David's prayers went unanswered. On numerous occasions, lions and bears attacked David's flock. I wonder if David ever questioned God: Why doesn't God answer my prayers for safety? The answer dawns on David as he's getting ready to face Goliath."

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"Maybe prayer is less about changing our circumstances than it is changing our perspective."


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"When I get into a spiritual or emotional slump, it's usually because I've zoomed in on a problem. I'm fixating on something I don't like about myself or someone else or my circumstances. And nine times out of ten, the solution is zooming out so I can get some perspective.
So how do we zoom out? The one-word answer is worship."

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"Reframing problems is about shifting focus. You stop focusing on what's wrong with your circumstances. And you start focusing on what's right with God."

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"Complainers will always find something to complain about. Worshipers will always find something to praise God about."

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"To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways; we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness; it should rather be an expression of breathless expectation." - Quote by Oswald Chambers in chapter 5, "Guaranteed Uncertainty."

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(Maybe you've heard this story before? Mark tells this story of Corrie ten Boom)

"Corrie used to speak to audiences about her horrific experiences in the concentration camps, and she would often look down while she talked. She wasn't reading her notes. She was actually working on a piece of needlepoint. After sharing about the doubt and anger and pain she experienced, Corrie would reveal the needlepoint. She would hold up the backside of the needlepoint to reveal a jumble of colors and threads with no discernible pattern. And she'd say, "This is how we see our lives." Then she would turn the needlepoint over to reveal the design on the other side, and Corrie would conclude by saying: "This is how God views your life, and someday we will have the privilege of viewing it from His point of view.""

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"Good is often the enemy of great."

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"Too many of us are tentatively playing the game of life as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death."

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"Work like it depends on you, and pray like it depends on God."

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Thus ends the book. Next I'm starting "Wisdom Hunter" by Arthur Randall .

I'm starting this new book simply because someone told me to read it, and I began "In a pit" because Louie over at Marshian Chronicles recommended it. And since I love to read and don't get enough nearly enough referrals, do you have any book recommendations?

Glory and grime

I'm still reading "In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day" by Mark Batterson. Yes, yes, I started it over a month ago. When you're reading it, it's a hard book to put down. But once it's down, I find it takes longer and longer for me to pick it back up and carry on.
I'm still underlining as I go, and will share - probably later this weekend - what I've been underlining. But I got to something and had to fire up my computer just to post it for you.

It's from the book, but it's a reference to a writing by Ted Loder in Guerillas of Grace.


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How shall I pray?
Are tears prayers, Lord?
Are screams prayers,
or groans
or sighs
or curses?
Can trembling hands be lifted to you,
or clenched fists
or the cold sweat that trickles down my back,
or the cramps that knot my stomach?
Will you accept my prayers, Lord,
my real prayers,
rooted in the muck and mud and rock of my life,
and not just the pretty, cut-flower, gracefully arranged
bouquet of words?
Will you accept me, Lord,
as I really am,
messed up mixture of glory and grime?

Underlined Bits

I'm currently reading "In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day" by Mark Patterson.

I have never read a book before that compelled to underline things (it reduces the resell value at my recycled book store!) but this book had me pulling out a pen. And, since I don't have any friends that will read this book I'm going to steal the concept of "Underlined Bits" and share the little bits that I've underlined. My comments will generally follow the segments.

I think the church has fixated on sins of commission for far too long. We have a long list of don'ts. Think of it as holiness by subtraction. We think holiness is the byproduct of subtracting something from our lives that shouldn't be there. And holiness certainly involves subtraction. But I think God is more concerned about sins of omission -- those things we could have and should have done. It's holiness by multiplication. Goodness is not the absence of badness. You can do nothing wrong and still do nothing right. Those who simply run away from sin are half-Christians.

I know, I know. I wrote today about cleaning up the low traffic areas for holiness' sake. I think both are right.

Is anybody else tired of reactive Christianity that is more known for what it's against than what it's for?

This statement should be followed by a loud mental "Amen".

[On Success] "Think of every opportunity as God's gift to you. What you do with those opportunities is your gift to God. "
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"But right at the top of the stewardship list is what I'd call opportunity stewardship."
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"But Benaiah did what lion chasers do. He defied the odds. He didn't focus on his disadvantages. he didn't make excuses. He didn't try to avoid situations where the odds were against him. Lion chasers know God is bigger and more powerful than any problem they face in this world."

The Benaiah reference is from 2 Sam. 23:20,21. The premise of the entire book Benaiah chased a lion into a pit on a snowy day and killed it. Who on earth chases a lion? Not me. But I've certainly got lions in my life. Anyone that could relate to my "What if" post certainly has lions in their life.

"There is a pattern that I see repeated throughout scripture: Sometimes God won't intervene until something is humanly impossible. And He usually does it just in the nick of time. I think that pattern reveals one dimension of God's personality: God loves impossible odds."
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"Too often our prayers revolve around asking God to reduce the odds in our loves. We want everything in our favor. But maybe God wants to stack the odds against us so we can experience a miracle of divine proportions."

I never really thought about how much of my prayers focus on me trying to get the odds more in my favor. I see it now though. I didn't get excited about the possibility of the impossible hitting my life. But when you serve a God of the impossible, and you really do trust Him wouldn't you just see those impossible moments as opportunities?

Faith quotes

Mark commented and left me a link to the book "When Heaven Invades Earth", by Bill Johnson. It's available online (so I don't feel bad giving you the quotes) so you can read it for free. But after you read it, go buy it (I plan to) if for no other reason than people can see it on your bookshelf. If you leave me alone in your living room, I guarantee I'll be snooping around your shelves seeing what you read. I assume you have nothing to hide. You don't do you?

These quotes I found (so far) were the ones that really hit me and made me think. If I find more I'll just update this post with them. So if you like these (and don't have time to read the book for yourself) check back and there may be more later.

When we submit the things of God to the mind of man, unbelief and religion are the results. When we submit the mind of man to the things of God, we end up with faith and a renewed mind. The mind makes a wonderful servant, but a terrible master.

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Faith is the mirror of the heart that reflects the realities of His world into ours. It is the substance of the unseen realm. This wonderful gift from God is the initial earthly manifestation of what exists in His Kingdom. It is a testimony of an invisible realm called the Kingdom of God. Through prayer we are able to pull that reality into this one—that is how faith functions.

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Heaven is not moved simply by the needs of man. It’s not that God doesn’t care. It was out of His great compassion that He sent Jesus. When God is moved by human need He seldom fixes the problem outright; instead, He provides Kingdom principles that when embraced correct the problems. If God was moved solely by human need then countries like India and Haiti would become the wealthiest nations in the world. It doesn’t work like that. Heaven is moved by faith. Faith is the currency of heaven.