My (your) calling!!! be what you are!!!!

Last night around 3AM (so okay it's morning).... but dark dark morning....

I awakened with a little 7 year old precious one in my bed and my sweet Troy asleep in the recliner.... I whispered

"Troy are you awake??? Troy???"

Clearly not!!!!

I wrote a LONG letter by e-mail of what was so clearly in my heart and needed expression before I could find "rest"......but although I will not write the extent of the letter,

I must write this simple word....

"once you know (believe) your calling in the body, then act on that belief, your destiny is confirmed and secure within you as well as to those outside yourself"

simple I know.....but how often to I respond to the manipulation of our strategic enemy? How often do I allow entrance to something that I KNOW (or should know) is a lie... even if it should come from a significant location?

If I be that which I am called to be, the strategy fails,

and I remain standing in the place I'm called to be.

Simple

Absolutely!

Then why am I so often caught with my legs buckled at the rug pulled from under me?

My own fault....for not recognizing....

"We do not wrestle with flesh and blood,

but with powers and principalities of this present darkness".

.....that I might add....seek to weaken or destroy our effectiveness for Kingdom work.

May I (and you) always know who I am....

and if I forget.....

May there always be someone who sees to point out the fact of my veiled vision!

Only temporary at this important time of life!

amen

I serve a Lord Who calls the things that are not as if they were, and they indeed are!

He is the great I AM...in Whom all things are possible, and through WHOM all things move and have their very being!

If..... (Troy's favorite poem)

I meant to put this on this blog this morning, but somehow it went first to my GateWay blog... oh well, it is meant for "words".... and these words are meant for my heart this morning... Lord, YOU are the ONE Who numbers my days,

YOu are the ONE Who calls my name,

You are the One Who knows the path,

You are the One Who knows

You are the ONE!

THIS I KNOW THAT I KNOW THAT I KNOW!!! YOU ARE THE ONE!
IF.....
IF you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spokenTwisted by knaves to make a trap for fools

,Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose,

and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,

if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more -

you'll be a Man, my son!

Perfect love casts out fear.... (the alligators can be seen and disposed of properly and with authority!)

I heard a story many years ago... well really it was an illustration when I was doing youth work. We were meeting with parents who were nervous about talking to their children about some pretty serious things. (scary talks about things like sex, life after middle school/high school, or more importantly.... things like eternal life and what does that have to do with now?)...

stuff like that provoked this story illustration:

There was a village in a remote part of the Amazon...

A missionary came to the village and was trying to fit into the culture into which he'd been led.

He noticed that in the village there were several young people who'd been maimed or wounded in very life altering ways.

Curious, yet trying to wait until he had permission to ask questions, the missionary simply watched these young ones fit into the traditions and culture into which they'd been born. Their limps and lacks were disregarded by the tribe, or simply accepted as part of their life.

As the missionary ate, interacted and lived with the people he soon was getting to participate in some of the traditions and rituals of the people.... ceremonies surrounding weddings, baby naming, and other celebrations of life were attended by the missionary. Then one day, he was allowed to travel the yearly trek to the river for the

banquet blessing the next year over the tribe's life.

As they approached the river, the missionary saw the children running, laughing and playing with abandon for the moment.....

it was a happy sight for the beginning of what seemed a fun tribal day.

Then, as the parents prepared the food, setting the lovely decorated table,

an unimaginable thing happened

The biggest alligator the missionary had ever seen stole onto the beach where the happy families were preparing and playing..

Alarmed, the missionary began running towards the parents saying....

"get the children, run, get the men... get guns,.... we are in danger, the children,

the children,

the children..... they are in danger!!!"

As he sounded the alarm and warned the parents,

their reactions amazed him...

They were unconcerned!

They told the man.... "there is no alligator, it is only something you are imagining, it can only hurt you if you give in to believing it is there....

just ignore it and it will go away!"

"JUST IGNORE IT AND IT WILL GO AWAY!"

Suddenly the missionary understood the reason for the wounded children......

tradition said......ignore this, it isn't real, and since this is what we always do, don't talk about it, or it will make us change the way it has always been in our tribe."

The missionary left knowing that there would be others wounded or even killed because the alligator in their midst would continue to be ignored until someone from the tribe itself decided to "see" and deal with the truth... thus with permission, putting an end to the alligator.

It is a story that brought some of those parents of my youth group into a place of victory in choosing to talk about, what they considered "scary" or "intrusive" subjects; and then to some it just was one more "story"....

for me, I've never forgotten the images.

This was a more graphic "the emperor's new clothes".......for me..........

it was about the innocence and the purity of a child's vision

("Mom the emperor is naked!")

their trust

my responsibility to that trust........ my responsibility to love!

Unless you become as a little child you can in no way enter the kingdom of God.....

Rob Bell spoke of this in a sermon I once heard........

he was talking about the fearlessness of a child......

particularly when that child is in the safe place of his/her parent's presence.

I've seen my children, my grandchildren run right off the side of a deep pool into the safety of their parent's arms....knowing that the love of their father would keep them from any danger.

maybe kids coined the term "NO FEAR" long before Nike adopted it......

then, I thought of a quote that I repeat....

"what you fear controls you"..... if that is true...

"perfect love casts out all fear"... I know that is true....

can both be true at the same time?

I think only one way......... with one more truth from my Lord,

"God is love".........

If love is what controls me, then I truly have no fear .....

at least of anything on this earth that could harm me.

My Father's arms and heart will allow nothing to steal onto the shores of my circumstances to take my eternal life. I realize that I am talking in both physical and spiritual terms here,

but for me......I am asking daily that the Lord teach my heart what the truest "reality" is,

and in doing that......there is the requisite death,

and the resulting resurrection to truth and life.

simply love and be loved.........not so simple for me at times.