CEO

When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I wanted to run my own domain and create a positive environment for others to work in. I was passionate about this and it's what I went to college for - International Business Affairs and Business Management.


My life is a far cry from running a Fortune 500, and at times I've felt that all my life has amounted to is cooking and cleaning..... cleaning and cooking.Or, running the kids around to all their different practices (soccer, baseball, basketball, gymnastics, ballet, swim, piano, art, guitar.... and the list goes on.)


As I sat thinking about my life the other day, God gave me this beautiful picture. Although my life has not turned out the way I had pictured, it has turned out exactly how God had always planned it. God showed me that I am running my own domain and company, complete with it's own cafeteria, laundromat, school, and "employees." And the beauty of running this empire is that the payoff is so much greater than any Fortune 500 company could ever pay me. 


While laying down with my youngest, she stroked my face and told me, "Mommy, you're my best-friend ever!" Or another time, I overheard my children playing "I Spy" and when one child said, "I spy, my little eye, I see something beautiful", one of the other children said, "Mommy!" There is no compensation greater than that, my friends. 


So what about you? Are you where God wants you to be? If your life isn't exactly what you had pictured, pray and allow God to either show you the beauty of where you are and why He put you there.... or allow Him to talk to you and show you where you need to go to get on track with where He's been wanting you. Sometimes in life, it's difficult to hear God's voice telling us to move if we are comfortable with where we are at. God's not interested in our comfort, He's interested in our salvation, our relationship with Him, and in our ability to be disciples to all nations!

Ps 143:10
  
"Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground."

Matthew 28:19


^"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

Jeremiah prayed this prayer in Jeremiah 10:23-24, 

"LORD, I know that people’s lives are not their own; it is not for them to direct their steps.
 Discipline me, LORD, but only in due measure - not in your anger, or you will reduce me to nothing." 

Jeremiah knew what we struggle to know sometimes.... our lives are not our own. My life's goals, at this juncture in my life, is to make disciples of my children. God has entrusted me with His children and it's my goal in life to make sure that I am bringing them up in a loving environment filled with God's love, hope, joy, grace and mercy, teaching them to be disciples, so they can in turn go out and make disciples! I thank God for the Fortune 500 company I am running. It's complete with a CEO (my husband), a COO (me!), and 4 little agents. 
 
If you would like help or would like someone to pray with you or for you, please, let contact me. 

Cherish God's Child

If you could but cherish God's child,
Revered Saviour within...
You'd see beyond this world so wild,
Perhaps lost souls to win...

If you could but give extra time,
A golden hour or two...
Perhaps you'd find God's truth sublime,
Give credit where it's due...

If you could but open His door,
God's opportunity...
You'd search God's Word, discover more
And gain God's clemency...

If you could but study and learn,
Absorb faith like a sponge,
What wondrous wisdom you'd discern...
Should you but take the plunge...

If you could but stretch out your hands -
Like Christ upon His cross,
Be humble to the Lord's commands,
You'd count your dreams as dross.

If you could but cherish God's child,
'Our Father who art in Heaven'
Would cleanse you till you're undefiled,
In Christ's Name... loved, forgiven... 


~ Denis Martindale

Are you listening?

I was out and about the other day and  I witnessed a father trying to discipline his (roughly) three year old son. The father instructed his son to "Come here." and his son screamed back, "NO!" This "conversation" continued for several more rounds until the father just gave up and let his child walk away.

I sat quietly as God began speaking to my heart about His children. God was asking me, "Is this any different than when I speak to my children and they, too, decide not to listen and eventually walk away, going about their own business?" I was personally convicted from the times in my life that I have heard the promptings from the Holy Spirit but did not follow through on God's Word to me. This began about an hours worth of praying for all of God's children, for the times where we will hear His voice, and still, choose to not obey.

My heart broke as I felt I got a small glimpse of the heart of God. When I sat there and pictured our Heavenly Father speaking words of instruction, discipline, wisdom, and guidance to those who call Him Father, and then played out in my head the same scene I had just witnessed, I couldn't help but to feel, even if ever so slightly, the small sting of pain and rejection God must feel when we choose not to listen to Him.

Proverbs 1:2-7 says this:

² for gaining wisdom and instruction;
   for understanding words of insight;
³ for receiving instruction in prudent behavior,
   doing what is right and just and fair;
⁴ for giving prudence to those who are simple,
   knowledge and discretion to the young—
⁵ let the wise listen and add to their learning,
   and let the discerning get guidance—
⁶ for understanding proverbs and parables,
   the sayings and riddles of the wise.
 ⁷ The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,
   but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

God wants the best for us. He wants to see us obediently heeding His instruction and His Word.

So, my question to you is: Are you listening? When you feel God speaking to you, instructing you to do something or disciplining you, do you heed that instruction or discipline?

And I have felt...a sense sublime     
Of something far more deeply interfused,    
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,     
And the round ocean and the living air,      
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;     
A motion and a spirit, that impels      
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,        
And rolls through all things.  William Wordsworth

When God speaks, He does so through His spirit and His Word. Listen for Him - God is not silent. 


"If God had wanted to be a big secret, He would not have created babbling brooks and whispering pines." ~Robert Brault