Obedience is an Act of Love

Today as I went about my day I decided to drop into a new dress shop in town to take a look.  As I browsed through the dresses all I could think was “which one would Ryan like?”  Well, I found the perfect dress and I headed home, excited to wear it to our anniversary date tonight.  I’ll let you in on a little secret…I don’t like dresses, but I have a closet full of them that I happily wear for one reason alone.  Ryan mentioned to me one time that he really loved me in dresses, that he preferred them actually.  That was it, I had become what I swore I would never be, I was now a dress wearing, cooking and cleaning, stay at home wife and mother.  I actually remember thinking women who let their husbands pick out clothes for them were crazy, but now I would rather Ryan help me choose what to buy because he is the only man I want looking at me anyways and I want him to like what he sees. Ryan would actually tell you that I straight up rejected the premise of stay at home mom when we were dating.  He had told me that he wanted a wife that would stay at home with the kids and I said, "then I'm not your girl!" I was the one who talked about the "lazy housewife" and mocked the very idea, but the truth was that came from a broken place, the place of knowing that I was never going to get the chance to be a mom. The me of 10 years ago would be groaning in agony over how much I have changed, and that is because the me of 10 years ago had not yet come to understand her place in this world and who she was in Gods eyes.  I’m so happy that I am not that girl anymore, that I have found my place and being who I was born to be has truly blessed me! I was born to be a mother, I was born to be a wife, I was born to serve God through a ministry, and my husbands willingness to support us and make it possible for me to stay home has been an amazing gift!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m by no means saying that every wife belongs barefoot in the kitchen, or is called to be a stay at home mom.  Many wives and mothers are called into the workforce and I applaud them for that. I don't exactly sit home knitting, I serve the Lord through the ministry of LIFE Runners and sometimes that seems like a full time job! I am, however, saying that we are all called to obey our husbands.  Yup, there it is, I said the unthinkable.  Every piece of the feminist driven propaganda is beating on the brain of women reading these words, so give me a minute to walk you through what I am trying to say before you brand me a deserter of all women kind!

This little line has been removed from most vows, mine included.  I REFUSED to say that I would obey Ryan, there was no way I was going to say that.  But what does it mean to obey your husband?  Truth is that it is not the scary word we have built it up to be.

Obedience- compliance with an order, request, or law or submission to another’s authority.

Ephesians 5:22

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.

So clear as day we are told that the biblical instruction is for wives to submit or obey their husbands.  But God doesn’t stop there with the instructions because if he is asking wives to submit to their husbands he is going to give our husbands ground rules as well!

Ephesians 5:25

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

WOW, my husband is commanded to love me to the point of sacrifice!  Why wouldn’t I want to submit to him!  If he is loving me and seeking the Lord, then he will lead me where I need to go, he won’t take advantage of his leadership, and he will care for me beyond my expectations! Now you may be in a marriage where your husband is not doing his part, but that doesn’t get you off the hook.  Unless he is asking you to do something immoral or illegal you still need to submit to your husband and pray fro his heart to be changed.  Truth is that a submissive wife can get more done than a wife in rebellion!

To be obedient to someone you really have to be willing to be vulnerable with them, to trust them completely, and I should hope that no one says “I do” to someone that they don’t feel loves them and cares for them!  To not be willing to come under your husbands authority as head of the household changes the structure of the design of marriage and enters rebellion into the mix!  To be truly obedient we must respect and trust the person who is directing us.  We are obedient at work with our boss or we lose our job.  Our children are obedient with us as parents or they face punishment.  We are obedient to law and order of our country or we face criminal charges.  We are obedient to God or we face eternal consequences, struggles and hardships.  So why is it that wives aren’t interested in obedience to their husbands?  Well, we have been fed the lie that obedience implies ownership, the ability to lord over another person, but if you love your husband and you trust your husband then obedience should come easily, and if it doesn’t its time to start digging into the cracks of your marital foundation and begin to repair them.

When I met Ryan I was completely broken.  I had gone through hell with my ex husband and my life had fallen into utter decay from my sinful choices.  I didn’t want to say “obey” because I had no intention of ever letting a man control me and hurt me the way my ex had.  I had put up a wall of protection and I wasn’t interested in letting anyone in, not Ryan and not God.  Funny thing about walls, they may keep the bad out but they also don’t let the good in.  I kept Ryan and a safe distance and it wasn’t until God crashed through my wall that I was able to see that the only way to go from there was towards God which meant I had to trust him.  Once I let go and let God have his way I knew I had to let Ryan inside the borders of my heart and that was hard, but little by little we grew together and we moved forward.  With each passing day and each tackled hurtle I realized that I trusted Ryan not to hurt me and that made me want to fall under his leadership of our household.  The more I submitted to him the more love he poured into me.  It was an amazing process!

So today, on our 10 year anniversary I whole heartily promise to love, honor, and obey my husband.  Marriage isn’t a fairy tale, its two very imperfect people who have decided to walk through life together.  To be willing to be vulnerable with each other, to be forgiving with each other, to be dedicated to making it work regardless of what life throws at us.  To keep God at the center and to commit to pray for and with one another.  To accept that we are flawed and make mistakes, but to trust that with God anything and everything is possible. In sickness and in health, for better or for worse, until death do we part….

Do You See What I See

Isaiah 55:8-11

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.  As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth:  It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

If we depend on anything other than God for our happiness we will be disappointed.  That amazing trip you planned years for is over in a blur and leaves you wondering “what now?”  The big finish line you worked so hard to reach but after crossing the finish the victory fades pressing you into the next big challenge.  Or what about the dream you poured your heart and soul into only to have it die before your very eyes….

Dreams are great, plans are good, goals are important, but if they don’t line up with what God has planned for you they will far short, way short.  There is nothing wrong with taking an amazing vacation, as long as you are being financially responsible and can truly afford it.  There is nothing wrong with setting a big goal and accomplishing it, but it should glorify God.  Nothing wrong with a little adventure, but if you are expecting these things to give you lasting happiness you will end up being disappointed.  True fulfillment comes from serving the LORD.  He is our provider, He is the only drink that satisfies!  Every thing we do can be an act of worship, it all depends on your willingness to let God lead you down the path He has for your life.  God gives us dreams and ambitions when we seek Him and His direction.  When we follow what He has put in our heart we will accomplish more that we ever imagined!

When you do something fully for yourself it won’t be long until the excitement wears off, before the victory fades away, before the thrill is all but gone.  Just like me expecting my husband to make me happy is not only unrealistic, its unfair to him.  Does he bring me happiness, of course, but does he let me down, from time to time-yes.  He was not put on this earth to satisfy my needs!  He was put here to serve God, and part of that service is caring for and loving me, but my needs, my purpose, my joy must come from God alone.

I’ve crossed my fair share of finish lines but the only one that I really remember was the marathon I ran for God alone.  Its not the race that brings a smile to my face, it was the way that God filled my heart and carried me those 26.2 miles that makes it such awesome experience.  Only in service, only in faith, only with God can we truly be complete!  I will say it again, EVERYTHING we do can and should be an act of worship.  You don’t need special skills, God has created you to serve in your own special way.  You don’t need an education to be useful to God, just pick up your Bible and spend some time seeking the wisdom that He alone can give us!  Everyone was created to serve, and we all have the choice to do what we were created for or make our own way.  Sometimes we seek to fill the void with the the wrong things; drugs, sex, alcohol, food, exercise, adventure, etc. but these things leave an even bigger hole.  God alone is what we crave and the moment we put Him in the rightful place in our hearts we begin to see nothing else measures up!

I will give you an example from my life.  My eyes we really opened up to these things when I faced the reality of my weight loss goals.  I had set a number and a jean size and I wanted it, I wanted it bad!  I truly believed that if I could reach 140lbs and a size 6 that I would be completely satisfied with myself.  What I didn’t see was that I was setting myself up for not only failure, but painful backsliding in thinking that something as arbitrary and temporary as a weight or jean size could satisfy what I was “hungering for.”  Well I did reach 140lbs and I do wear a size 6 but the body looking back at me in the mirror hadn’t changed in my eyes (in spite of losing over 40lbs).  The disappointment of feeling like I had gone so far for nothing caused me to temporarily give up and I managed to gain back 10lbs.  I'm so happy that I gained this weight back.  It made me realize that I was reaching for something that was not supposed to be my focus!  Yes, its good to get healthy.  Yes, I need to lose some of my extra weight, but that should never change how I feel about myself!  I am now able to not have the scale deeply impact my heart and my attitude, because I realize that what size I am has nothing to do with who I am.  I did see that me binging on food was my new drug of choice and it was causing me pain.  It left me feeling guilty, angry, and completely disgusted with myself after a binge.  I was trying to stuff food in a hole that needed to be filled with God!  More important than losing that 10lbs again, is to finally be free of the power food and a negative body image have had over my life for far to long.  I will continue this journey to be healthy not so I can look a certain way, but that I can be who God created me to be, someone who depends on Him alone to supply my needs!  Every thing we do should be an act of worship!  My perspective and view of myself is what needs to be changed so that my fulfillment comes from my relationship with God and nothing else!  I share this part of my journey only as an example of how the enemy uses many weapons against us, to try to beat us down and weaken our faith but He cannot win if we put all of our hope in the Lord!

Isaiah 54:17

no weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you.  This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and this is their vindication from me,” declares the LORD.

The enemy is a LIAR!  Nothing in this world can satisfy us!  I dont care how much money you have, it will never be enough.  I don’t care how many nice things you own, they cannot satisfy your heart.  I don’t care if you travel to every nation of the world and see the wonders of this amazing creation, it will not fulfill your deepest desires.  The only thing that will quench the yearning of your heart is to let God fill it with His love, His purpose, and His plan! There is a yearning in all of our hearts, it was put there on purpose.  That yearning is where God wants to dwell, until He is the only thing we desire! 

Lean on God

Self Reliance- A false and misleading assumption that one can make it through life by their own will and desire relying on no one for help.  But we can not make it on our own will, we don’t have the endurance or ability and here is a little secret, we were never meant to rely on ourselves alone!  We were meant to surrender completely to God and rely on HIM!  He alone knows what we need and is faithful to provide when we need it. 

Today as I began my run I struggled with the heat and the headwind.  I was frustrated and I asked God why I couldn’t catch a break.  His response opened my eyes…

When we think we are strong we forge a path on our own will.  Our strength will carry us for a short while but it is not sustainable.  Like the headwind I faced, God will allow life to push back, to weaken us as we fight the very blessing meant to carry us.  When we rely on self there is no need for God in our lives, but God doesn’t leave us, He begins to work on us and presses in on us to show us the limits of our own strength.  Finally when we have fought long enough that we are completely depleted of our own abilities and we realize we need to turn back around the same “wind” that brought us to our knees will now carry us home!  If we truly want to be blessed in this life we must let go of self and trust God.  When we are not willing to let Him have control we fight against the blessings in our life without even realizing it!

Too often we find ourselves impatient to wait on the Lord, thinking we know how to get through what we are going through but the blessing in the struggle is that we can let God carry us.  We don't fight our battles alone unless we are unwilling to let God provide the way.  It's so hard to let go, I am a control freak and God continuously teaches me about letting go.  The amazing thing is that the more I let go the more peace I experience even when things are really rough.  I have come a long way in releasing my burdens and I still have a very long way to go, but little by little I see that the "wind" I am fighting against is meant to carry me if I will just change direction and go the route God had planned.  The enemy will even try to confuse us and make us think certain battles aren't meant to be surrendered but if it is a weight you carry you can be sure that God wants it, He wants to take it from you!

Ephesians 2:13

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.  

We are precious, we are His and when we give our hearts to Him we can be sure that every detail of our lives matter to God.  Everything we do can and should be an act of worship, and that means that letting things burden us and distract us are things we need to surrender so we can focus on what God is trying to teach us.  I think that this for me is the biggest faith test, letting go and trusting God completely in all things.  It sounds funny when I say that out loud because God created the Heavens and the Earth, He created you, me, everyone and yet by not giving my burdens to Him I am basically saying I know better how to handle the things I face! THAT IS CRAZY!  I am thankful that God continues to work on my heart, to change me.  The things He has asked me to give up have benefited me and the things He has told me should be the most important have blessed me.  I don't feel deprived as a Christian, I don't feel left out, like I am missing the party!  Quite the opposite, I feel like I am finally living, that my life has so much purpose now! Everything has deeper purpose and meaning when you do it to serve the Lord.  I love my husband more, I strive to be a better mom, I hope to be a good friend, I pray to be a bold leader and a soul winner.  Those are ways I can serve God in my daily life and they make getting out of bed each day even more worth it! God alone is meant to be who we rely on and He is faithful to provide!

"Food can fill our stomachs but never our souls.
Possessions can fill our houses but never our hearts.
Sex can fill our nights but never our hunger for love.
Children can fill our days but never our identities.
Jesus wants us to know only He can fill us and truly satisfy us." ~Lysa Terkeurst (Made to Crave)

Food for Thought

In my journey to become healthy one truth really impacted me, “you can’t out run bad food choices.”  It's simply a well known fact.  Most of us do it in the beginning, we run our first half marathon and then proceed to reward ourselves with a 2,000 calorie piece of cheesecake or a box of donuts, but the fact is that you simply can’t out run those foods, they are great in moderation but the daily habit of offsetting your running with a treat will catch up to you! Being healthy requires good food, exercise and most importantly time with God.

I have been asked quite a few times by people who have attempted to take up running how I stick with it, why I don’t give up.  I run in heat, I run in the cold (but I try to avoid that one), I run in the rain, and crazy wind (running in between cyclones can be challenging).  I run an average of 1400 miles a year which seems like a lot to me, but is nothing in comparison to what some runners run.  So why?  Why don’t I give up when it gets tough, and honestly it gets tough a lot!  I can tell you that if I was running to lose weight I would have quit, sure I lost about 10 lbs my first marathon training, but I gained 10 lbs the second time around and it wasn’t all muscle (those bad food choices caught up).  If I was running to glorify myself I would have quit because I am no record holder and although I know my running has improved it certainly isn’t taking me places in the runners world.  So why?  That is simple, I run for something bigger than myself, than my ego, than my waist line.  I run for God.  I run so that I can serve the Lord better.  When I run I have to fully rely on God.  There is never a run that doesn’t have some ache or pain, there is never a run that isn’t challenging in its own way.  Every run is an opportunity to trust God to get me where I am going and to reach people along the way!  I run as a living banner of hope, in my time on the street not only do I have complete focused prayer and praise time, but I have the ability to be where God needs me to be to encourage someone.  Sometimes there may be someone I get to pray with, sometimes I simply get to pray for someone as they pass by.  There may be countless people that the Holy Spirit is reaching out to as I run by with the LIFE Runners “REMEMBER the Unborn, Jer 1:5” message on my back.  I don’t know, but I do believe in divine appointments and I have seen God arrange a few in my life so far.  I run because I can and because God asked me to.  I run because we are to do everything we do for Gods glory!  We are sanctified and made Holy when we trust the Lord with our salvation through His amazing grace, and that means that everything we do can and should be an act of worship and service.  I run because my life is not my own, and this is my surrender!

Running can be a very selfish thing, it can become all about self and that is the area of our lives that God is always working on.  He wants us to see that we can serve Him in everything we do!  As someone who smoked and drank through her 20’s the fact that I am training for my 3rd marathon just reminds me of what a gift I have been given.  I will continue to run for God because that is what God has put in my heart to do.

Just like the fact that we cannot out run bad eating, we also can’t and shouldn’t take grace for granted.  I used to do everything for myself and paid little mind to what God might be asking of me.  I’m so thankful that God got a hold of me and set me back on the right path but my heart grieves for those who still seem to be hanging onto hyper-grace.  The truth is that when Jesus gets a hold of us we simply must change, He does that for us, and it is amazing to let the bonds fall off!

I fear that too many people/churches seem to miss the catch, and there is a catch.  If you go to John 8:1-12 you will find a powerful story of forgiveness

John 8:1-12

1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

11 “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

This story shows the awesome forgiveness of our Lord and Savior.  Here is a woman caught in the very act of adultery, she can’t deny it, she can’t escape it, her accusers know that they have caught her, but Jesus looks the accusers in the face and defies them.  Today we see so many churches living in a teaching of hyper-grace and this is dangerous ground.  They would simply leave this story at “then neither do I condemn you” and nothing more.  BUT that is not what Jesus said and that is not what Jesus TEACHES.  He followed it with a command, he told her to “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

I used to be one of these “Christians” who left it at “neither do I condemn you” unwilling to give up my drinking and selfish ways.  It simply does not work, that is not the design.  Many Christians still commit habitual or lifestyle sins and that is a hindrance to Gods ability to use you and grow you.  Maybe it is gossip, maybe it is lying, maybe it is premarital or extramarital sex, maybe it is pornography, drinking or gambling, whatever it may be the message is clear.  Although grace does cover your sin it requires a repentant heart, a turning from, a willingness to “go and sin no more.”

Can you imagine the above story from John if the adulterous woman had behaved as we seem to more and more in society today.  If after escaping being stoned to death she rose to her feet and looked Jesus in the eyes and said “Hey Jesus thanks for getting those judgmental guys off my case, thanks for finding me not guilty, but you know what I kind of like my life and I love that man I was with so I’m just going to head back to what I was doing since you declared me not guilty!”  CAN YOU IMAGINE!  Yet that is what we do every single time we have premarital sex, every time we back stab and gossip, every time we watch pornography or questionable movies, every time we tell another lie, every time we drink ourselves into oblivion or gamble away our last dollar.  We look Jesus in the eye and thank him for his grace and then we tell Him that our lifestyle is more important than our devotion to Him.  That is hyper-grace and it is a modern day lie of satan to keep us on the path of destruction!

Its kind of like binge eating the night before a run.  Sure you can still run but its not going to be good and you will struggle.  When we indulge in things that aren’t meant for us as believers it hurts our fellowship with God, our time with Him is not as powerful as it is meant to be, there is something that stands in the way of that fellowship!

Galatians 5:17

For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.

Its time to take a minute and look within and ask ourselves, “is there something that I am taking a hyper-grace attitude over?”  If so its time to let the power of those lies be broken over our lives.  Its time to truly surrender those struggle areas to God, to seek forgiveness with a repentant heart and to never return to those choices again.  God is waiting and he is ready!