Tag Archives: God

God said wha???

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Devotional Blog:

Topic: “Confused?…go Back”, 01/24/2012, Jeremiah 24: 6-7

How does one ‘hear’ from God? This is a loaded topic for me…

“I will give them hearts that will recognize me as the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me wholeheartedly” -NIV, Jeremiah 24:7

 

“After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.” -NIV, 1 Kings 19:12

 

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” -NIV, Rev 3:22

Confused? Always. I bumble my path routinely in an effort to ‘hear’ God and know what his plan and purpose for my life is. I say the prayers, I keep so still as to nearly faint from not breathing enough, I close my eyes and meditate during worship, think of things I’ve learned, listen to pastors and mentors more learned than me…

Majority of the time I think I must be on the wrong channel…cause all I ever get is static and I rarely know what exactly it is I am doing wrong. Continue reading →

Dream within a dream

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Devotional Blog:

Topic: “Pretty Good Company”, 12/29/11, John 12: 20-28

Happy Birthday Edgar Allen Poe, Born January 19, 1809. Odd way to start a devotional post complete with topic title and Bible verse by saying happy birthday to a man whose poetry and stories are often of the macabre gothic nature and depressing, but now that I’ve piqued your curiosity, stick with me…

Today’s entry is about walking into the dreams that God has given us in our lives. The visions, the promises, the hopes…and perhaps not getting to see or experience the fruits of our labors, our suffering, our patience. The author (Pam) goes onto to say, ‘you are not alone’. You are not the only one to receive great promises only to never see them come to pass in your lifetime or as Moses did, stand at the border and watch your people walk into the promise led by another man. How heinously frustrating. You do everything you believe God is telling you to do, you walk through the doors, you invest time, faith, money, more time, more faith….you sit and watch as others experience the joy that comes from their dreams or promises coming to pass and you sit. You sit, telling yourself to be patient, telling yourself God has not forgotten you, telling yourself that you want things in God’s timing. Then you look up and you say God WHEN is your timing!!!???  And you cry out…you cry out. Continue reading →

I am a fussy toddler…

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Devotional Blog:

Topic: “Cultivating the quiet”, 01/08/12, Psalm 23: 1-6

Hey…I’m into January in this book…well actually I’m backlogged and still have some blogs from December’s month in the book to write but I kind of just dog-ear them and will get to them, eventually.

Interestingly this one came up. In a previous entry in the book the author had encouraged us to spend our time productively and not waste it and I wrote a blog about how taking moments to ‘space out’ and how valuable that can be for ones mental health. Now in this entry she encourages moments of quiet stating that a ‘quiet heart is a receptive heart’. 1 Peter 3:4 states, pulling from the previous verse–beauty…”should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” Pslam 23: 2 states: “He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams…”

Flipping through the book this morning to find an entry dog-earred to write about I came across this and it hit a nerve for me. In the past few weeks my life has taken a tremendous turn. Continue reading →

A womans place is in the home…???

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Devotional Blog:

12/21/11, Topic: “Workers at Home”, Titus 2: 3-5

I’ve heard this verse used to justify a woman’s calling to ‘stay at home’ and raise a family as opposed to being independent and working. I’m not going to say much about this books devotional entry except that I like how the author deals with this and I agree with what she says…amazing given I rarely agree with what she has to say.

Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the world of God. (Titus 2:4-5, NIV).

Now fundamentally I do not disagree with anything in this verse. I do believe that women should love their husbands and children and make them first in their lives. I do believe that women (and men) should practice self control, be kind and be subject to their husbands (or wives). Purity is a subject for another blog but I don’t necessarily disagree with what the verse says about that. And of course there’s the ‘busy at home’. In a previous blog I addressed what ‘home’ is for me…personally, growing up I was never taught that I should aspire to go to college to get my M.R.S. (Mrs.) degree. My parents were always encouraging us to go out there live our lives, get jobs and accomplish our goals and aspirations with no expectation that we should marry and have babies right away…although I know my mother would love to be a grandmother.

I think at one point my mom, when she had my little brother whose 21 years younger than me…she joked that she was tired of waiting for me to have grandbabies for her so she made another of her own.

The author of the devotional, in her studies, found that the definition of ‘busy at home’ is “worker at home”, “a guard of the home; keeper of the home; domestically inclined…” She read more opinions, studies and commentaries about the subject and they all had one common feature, a woman’s heart is at home. Her priorities and heart reflect God and a family focused value system. I can agree with this and not just because it’s ‘convenient’ for me to agree with this because of my life choices.

God can use women same as men in every aspect of life. God is an equal opportunity ‘employer’ and I don’t believe it’s ‘left up to the men’ to do ‘all God’s work’. Yes, God made women to bear children and we have a more natural ‘maternal’ (obviously) disposition which makes us suited to having kids and running a home. And I am not opposed nor ever have been opposed to having kids. I love kids, I’ve just never had a ‘biological clock’. If I have kids, great, if I don’t, I don’t. And I know my own disposition, I’d go nuts from cabin fever if I had to spend 18 years at home only ‘allowed’ to raise my kids and ‘keep house’. I don’t think God intends that. We all have gifts outside the ‘home’ and while my priorities will always be my family, I think its possible and encouraging to have other ‘callings’ as well.

I agree with her when she says:  “Your feet can be anywhere but your heart should be ‘at home’.”

God bless…no strings attached

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Unofficial Devotional Blog: (not in book, but I’m gonna write it anyway)

Topic: “love, judgement, right and wrong” (verses…many, see below)

Since I started this devotional ‘section’ to my blog I’ve talked about a lot of different topics introduced to me by this rather ‘fluffy’ devotional book that I’ve been making my way through. And I actually was going to write another entry based in that book but as I opened the link to start a new blog…all this came flowing out instead. For an introduction to how this all got started in all the ‘devotion’ stuff see the first blog about my attempt at keeping regular devotions and analyzing my faith. Topics ranged in this book from finding your ‘hidden sin (blog post)’, leadership and mentorship (blog 1, blog 2), family and finances (blog), wishing for a different life (blog), acceptance (blog), love and forgiveness (blog), relationships with non-believers (blog), trauma (blog), life purpose/being saved for something I wrote on the anniversary of 9/11 (blog) and many of the things I’ve said, done or written have gotten me pegged throughout life as a ‘lukewarm Christian’.

I read a blog post entitled “I’m Christian unless you are Gay” written by a guy whose blog I follow because he has interesting things to say. Since it’s been written it’s gotten 74K plus facebook ‘likes’ and has been shared I’m sure countless times to ‘mixed’ reviews sometimes. I am one of those that shared this post on facebook and now I am sharing it here with my own take. I encourage you to read his post (linked above) in its entirety as well as some of the responses to the post both negative and positive. He’s caused quite the firestorm and some of the responses were very powerful.

After reading his post and all the responses…two quotes stuck with me. Continue reading →

flirting with…

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Devotional Blog:

Topic: “Not a Hint”, 11/19/2001, Ephesians 5: 3-7

The author has the uncanny ability to piss me off in some of these entries. Perhaps one page or less isn’t enough space for her to fully explain what she means by what she says. Or perhaps she intends to bother her readers and sound a bit high and mighty.  I’m not saying her choice of verses and topics aren’t good ones…though not all of them I can relate with, hence do not write about. I suppose I wish she was a little more encompasing in her topics. No I don’t want her to sugar coat ‘sin’ as she defines it but I’d like it if she didn’t freak out ‘new’ Christians who might pick up her book and think–holy ‘$%!@’ and question Christianitys sincerity. I’ll explain further. Continue reading →

Minions and Mentorship…

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Devotional Blog:

Topic: “Mentor Me”, 11/16/2011, Proverbs 9:9-12

I don’t know how many times since starting my postdoc that I’ve desired minions. Cohorts in my pursuit of viral evolution and ecology. Kindred spirits clad in lab coats and laced with the smell of phenol chloroform. Ok…really I just need people to help me with lab work that I like doing but I have less and less time to do as analysis and writing alone consumes me sometimes. But in return I’d like to mentor.

I mentored a very motivated undergraduate student while in grad school and she turned out quite apt and successful so I figure I did something right…and I tried at all costs to minimize her interactions with my boss who also happened to be her academic mentor. He had the uncanny ability to make many women (including myself at times) who worked in his lab want to staple things to his head and leave in a hail of frustrated cuss words and gunfire.

I mentioned in my last post that many topics in this book seem to be on repeat and I realize I posted a blog earlier on ‘leadership’ but I think this is different…the idea of leadership and mentorship. Ideally they should go hand in hand and I aspire to that but many times they don’t. There are many leaders that are terrible mentors and mentors that if you put them in charge of something wouldn’t know left from right practically speaking–rather they are gurus of ‘sense’. They are often the ones that you want to quote a lot because they inspire you, even if practically speaking they may not get a whole lot done.

Leaders you follow, mentors you quote. And if you have someone that is both, then  you get the great leaders of our time. But they all had to start somewhere. Continue reading →

Embarrassment

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Devotional Blog:

Topic: “Embarrassed”, 11/15/2011, Proverbs 22:4-16

So I haven’t blogged about the devotions I’ve been reading and yes, I have been reading them because so far they’ve been records on repeat, dealing with issues already discussed in the book…and I’ve only been reading since August. So I’m wondering at this point how many topics she’s going to deal with multiple times. I finally came across some more original ones, like yesterday’s.

In high school I had the meanest crush on a kid who was my friend freshman and sophomore year then went off that summer and got all buff from working out, pretty much lost all the acne and came back junior year HOT. With his newfound hotness and suddenly getting plenty of attention our friendship fell off to the side and while we were always friendly, it just was different now. I wasn’t exactly a hottie back then and therefore couldn’t exactly ‘compete’ for his affections. Prior to that, it was the classic one is interested while the other is not and vice a versa.

Anyway, during my crush phase I was walking around campus and saw him so of course I prolonged my look–just long enough to run smack into the middle of a pillar, hard enough it landed me on my ass. In the middle of morning break when the high school campus was full of kids (our campus wasn’t closed, it was several small buildings you had to walk between). And I wanted to crawl into a corner and die….of course.

Another time in high school, I saw my friends across the field at another building, they saw me, we waved and I jogged toward them…only to be hit by a golf cart, campus security. They weren’t paying attention, I wasn’t paying attention…it culminated on me ‘bug-splatting’ myself onto the golf cart and ‘melting’ off like in a cartoon while my friends laughed hysterically. I was a very accident prone child apparently.

Even as an adult I have my moments of lip syncing or tap dancing in the lab while experiments are running when I think no one is looking only to turn around and have an audience! DOH!

Such are these small embarrassments. I related this on facebook and actually got some pretty funny stories in response:

  • I once mooned my husband when we were playing racquetball – completely forgetting the court had a see through glass door! :)
  • When I had a stand up desk in he CCB I would listen to music and do little dances while I worked. Well I had forgotten that I had a meeting with a couple campus people and didn’t realize they had been standing there for a couple minutes watching me “get jiggy”
  • It happened several times that I was in the bus –crowded with people– and then I had an idea about solving a problem I had been thinking about for quite a while. Then I shouted “That’s why!” in a very loud voice. People would immediatly stare at me….
  • I pee in the forest when no one is looking. :)
  • On more than one occasion I’ve been extreme-coding with Pandora blasting when my advisor came in to the lab to chat… He starting clapping loudly to get my attention…

Good to know I’m not the only one.

Reflecting back all these situations are funny, though they were just shy of mortifying back then and of course EVERYTHING is more dramatic to a high school student. Funny thing is, some of us aren’t much better in adulthood, haha!

Its good to be reminded of humility. Speaking with Tyghe one time he said he thinks God throws situations at us just so he can laugh at our antics and reactions dealing with said situation. Or perhaps he doesn’t actually throw a situation but he’s certainly up there shaking his head and laughing for sure and most things us humans do.

Having an out of money experience

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Devotional Blog: “Family and Finance”, 11/4/2011; 1 Timothy 5:3-4, 8, 16

I took the title above from a quote by Author Unknown: “I am having an out of money experience”. It amused me.

So surprise, surprise this is yet another devotional entry in the book that I see differently than the author perhaps. Family, finances and lending money are huge topics. We all know that one of the biggest problems that can arise in a marriage can be over money or lack of it rather. I’ve seen money tear people and apart sometimes because of greed sometimes because of the emotions attached to the money that may have nothing to do with the money itself.

In the book, Pam talks about the duality of lending money to family that is discussed in the Bible. In 2 Corinthians 12:14 it states “…After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.” and then in 1 Timothy 5:8 it states: “But those who won’t care for their own relatives, especially those living in the same household have denied what we believe. Such people are worse than unbelievers.” She then goes on to ask what should our responsibility be in terms of using our money to care for relatives/family? Her answer: “When in doubt, do like God recommends: ‘speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice (Proverbs 31:9). He doesn’t allow people to continue in unhealthy patterns, but if they have tried their best and fall short, his long arm of love reaches out.”

I agree with her statements and the verses she used in some respects. Continue reading →

greener grass?

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All your life you live so close to truth it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye. And when something nudges it into outline, it’s like being ambushed by a grotesque.

~Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Devotional Blog: 10/22/2011, 10/26/2011, and 10/28/2011; “Being true to yourself” and “Fact and fiction”; Romans 12: 12-18, Acts 2: 32-39, and 2 Peter 1:15-21

I’m lumping these entries together because they speak of similar things regarding how we see ourselves compared to others, how others make us feel about ourselves and the alternate realities we concoct of a life ‘we want’ rather than the life we are supposed to be living. Continue reading →