Making pooh into fertilizer

John 11:4-7,32-44 at the end of this blog is the account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.  

Recently during a terribly poopy day, I believe God showed me that I was not being given lemons in my life.  Instead of lemons the enemy was handing me big steaming piles of pooh...sometimes quite literally.  I had been just dealing with the pooh as I was accustom to.  My life before Christ was lived by "Murphy's Law" so it was only "natural"...aka habit, for me to just roll with it and fight the depression that continued to try and set in.  BUT this day I was reminded, the pooh doesn't come from God for His glory of seeing me trudge through it.  Sure it is a great testimony of His awesome power and peace when a person can still some how keep being a light through their trials, but the pooh comes from the enemy and I can send it back.  I still have to deal with it, but I do not have to accept it....just like a rotten wedding gift...which is fitting since we ARE the bride of Christ.... I can simply return it(rotten gift).  I do not have the receipt but I DO know where it came from. The greater glory is given to God when we are Victorious.  A battle is not lost while the battle goes on...but it is not won either.  The victory comes when we emerge triumphant!

In the verses below I highlighted the portions that spoke to me the most.  Jesus wept, we are reminded of this often in sermons,  Jesus was angry, but He took His anger and turned it into a miracle...He used it to "move" Him. So in essence He took the pooh and made it fertilizer. 

We are also reminded that He can stop things from happening, but what gives God the greater glory?  For me I see it like this...
A man is crossing the road and he doesn't see the car barreling toward him which would have killed him BUT another man stopped the car and saved him.  The man who was saved carried on unknowing of what nearly happened to him.  He was not thankful that he was saved by the stranger because he did not know he was saved....BUT when the man is crossing the road and doesn't see the car barreling toward him and another man jumps out in front of the car and pushes the man to safety, then the first man knows how blessed he is to be alive.  The second man(God) did not cause the car to nearly hit the man, BUT he saved the first man and was given glory for his actions.

We as people drop the hedge of protection which is placed around us, the enemy can then enter...he does as he wills BUT we have the authority to take back what is rightfully ours to give God glory.

Though nothing is mentioned in the below scriptures about the enemy...and the passage is giving us a description of Lazarus in his burial cloth, I like the way the words can be used for reference to what the enemy does in our lives when allowed...he puts us in bondage which Jesus must loose us from.  ...
And that is all for now... 
God bless you all on your journey and may all we do be for His glory, leading the lost into His light, by walking in His ways.



<sup>John 11

 

4</sup> When Jesus heard it, He said, “This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.  ⁵ Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus. ⁶ So when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. ⁷ Then after that, He said to the disciples, “Let’s go to Judea again.”

³² When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell at His feet and told Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died!”
³³ When Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, He was angry in His spirit and deeply moved. ³⁴ “Where have you put him?” He asked.
“Lord,” they told Him, “come and see.”
³⁵ Jesus wept.
³⁶ So the Jews said, “See how He loved him!” ³⁷ But some of them said, “Couldn’t He who opened the blind man’s eyes also have kept this man from dying?”

The Seventh Sign: Raising Lazarus from the Dead

³⁸ Then Jesus, angry in Himself again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. ³⁹ “Remove the stone,” Jesus said.
Martha, the dead man’s sister, told Him, “Lord, he’s already decaying. It’s been four days.”
⁴⁰ Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”
⁴¹ So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You heard Me. ⁴² I know that You always hear Me, but because of the crowd standing here I said this, so they may believe You sent Me.” ⁴³ After He said this, He shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴ The dead man came out bound hand and foot with linen strips and with his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him and let him go.”

What is it all for?

I often replay the song of Josh Garrels - Farther Along.   For me this song reminds me that there are so many levels of depth to this life that if one tried to pull all the layers apart they would end up in a state of pure confusion, yet I am drawn time and time again to this "table" where my life lays out before me layer upon layer and I stand gazing upon all the layers and can't stop myself from pulling out the tweezers and trying to separate the layers and find out why I am the way I am, why "this" happens, why "that" happens, why I do "this" when I should do "that", why I allow "this" when I know better, why "this" feels out of my control but "that" is no problem to control and get past... and so on and so on.  I stand before my table and in my vision I can see the tables of others as well and I ask myself, "Am I the only person or at least one of the only people who sees they have areas of weakness which COULD and SHOULD be worked on?"  In no way do I want to attempt to pull the speck out of mt brother/sister's eye when there is a log in mine, but I wonder...do they stand before a table too?  Or are they standing before my table talking amongst themselves?

As I look back at my table I see all of my layers are currently piled on top of my children's layers.  There is a clear distinction of which layers are mine and which are theirs, but some of my layers are beginning to rub off on theirs.  Some of the layers rubbing off are leaving a great impression and some not so great.  I notice my layers still have traces from people of influence in my life, family and other, good and bad.  Some of the layers of influence appear to be washing away others are more clear.  I can see the impressions I left on my children's layers are washing away in some areas as well.  This for me, is one of the hardest things to see.  Seeing this makes me ever aware that ALL I do leaves an impression on my children, and although I cannot be perfect, am I doing ALL I can to show myself Christ-like?  I can answer that with a huge NO.  Sure I may do "this" better than most but there is too much I am sharing which I am not pleased.  For me...THIS is what it is all for. 
 

God blessed me with my particular children and has given me a responsibility to raise them up to follow His ways.  While they are in my care, and even after I have a purpose to be Christ-like in the way I behave and teach.  This calling is a huge responsibility, especially knowing that my impression will leave a mark on their layers and their layers will leave a mark on their children's layers and other people they influence.  The only way the bad impressions are washed away is by the healing only Jesus can bring. It is vitally important to me to leave the best impression I can, yet I can't do it well enough.  Am I expecting to much of myself? Am I not leaning on God enough.  Do I need to let Him take something I am holding on to?  Probably.  I also know I let the "Martha" duties of this life take away from the "Mary" duties.  What else do I know?  Well I don't have a year to tell all...lol, but I do know the devil FEARS me.  he (lower case for a reason) has tried so many times to use my weaknesses against me, expecting me to try to do things in my own strength and fail, and I have done just what he wanted time and time again, and honestly it was not till this moment that I caught him hiding out in "Murphy's Law" again.

I used to think my life was all Murphy's Law, till I began to understand how the Kingdom of God worked.  Thinking about the things that have been happening to me recently, I can see clearly now how the devil has been hiding...sly devil.  I just kept pressing on and trying not to flip out and get depressed, never thinking I did not HAVE to be going through all that powerless.  To share the laundry list of recent disasters would take a century so please just know it was bad, but God's got it now, cause I let go.  Okay that is my "rabbit trail" moment and...I am done. 

I believe it is a worthy question to ask of ourselves... "What is it ALL for? REALLY?"  I don't believe it is the cars, the money, the house etc.  What a worthless purpose.  We can't take it with us when we go and those things will not leave an impression of greatness on the people we influence.  Does Jesus get excited "Boy I can't wait to meet with him/her, he/she had a GREAT house/car!!!" I think not.

So God bless you all and good night!

Matthew 13:44 (HCSB)

The Parables of the Hidden Treasure and of the Priceless Pearl

⁴⁴ “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure, buried in a field, that a man found and reburied. Then in his joy he goes and sells everything he has and buys that field. ~ via biblegateway.com