Overwhelmed

“…I will cry to you when my heart is overwhelmed.” Psalm 61:2

I had a very hard past week – and by Thursday I was struggling greatly. By Thursday afternoon, I had decided that I couldn’t do anything well.  I do all of these things in a day, which means my focus is always split, which means I can’t excel at any of them:

I couldn’t be a wife and do it well…

I couldn’t be a mom and do it well…

I couldn’t be a pastor’s wife and do it well…

I couldn’t be an employee and do it well…

I couldn’t keep house and do it well….

I couldn’t disciple women and do it well….

I felt like a failure, I felt overwhelmed, I felt guilty, I felt mad..

Before I even prayed or called out to God, I called Scott with tears in my eyes……My question…

How do I let myself feel overwhelmed by life?

I love the Lord.  I trust His plan, His ways, and His callings.

It happens to you. It happens to me. It happens more often than we realize.

As I study scripture I am reminding that Jesus didn’t teach about positive thinking. He preached salvation. He was moved by the people who knew they had a need. And He touched them.

When I am overwhelmed, I have a great need and the reality is, I’ve let my heart and mind drift from God. I’ve fastened my attention on my problems rather than my Lord.

My quiet times were non-existent because I was busy, I was only studying scripture for bible study. My eating was not healthy, my sleep was broken. 

But The Lord reminded me to start praising Him for His faithfulness and his loving kindness . I needed to change my focus : away from my problems and onto Him, the Lord Himself will reward our faith and give us His perfect peace.

Verses to focus on….

Ecclesiastes 7:14
When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other.

From the end of the earth I will cry to You, When my heart is overwhelmed; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Psalm 61:2

When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, Then You knew my path. In the way in which I walk they have secretly set a snare for me. Psalm 142:6

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. Isaiah 40:28

But they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.       Isaiah 40:31

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. John 14:1

The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song. Psalm 28:7

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Eph. 6:2

Side note for those that read to the end (inserting smiley face!)  - God is leading me to begin a discipleship/mentoring group – if interested – send me an email….loridean2000@gmail.com or Facebook me!!

 

Discipleship – Part 2

Continuing my post from yesterday…..

Discipleship brings us closer to Christ.  Discipleship allows us to “see” what God desires for our lives.  We learn to love others and truly feel the urgency to share the gospel.

Discipleship teaches that “we should be more concerned with reaching the lost than pampering the saved.”

Discipleship teaches, “‎Those who aren’t following Jesus aren’t his followers. It’s that simple. Followers follow, and those who don’t follow aren’t followers. To follow Jesus means to follow Jesus into a society where justice rules, where love shapes everything. To follow Jesus means to take up his dream and work for it.”

Discipleship teaches that “Fortunately, God made all varieties of people with a wide variety of interests and abilities. He has called people of every race and color who have been hurt by life in every manner imaginable. Even the scars of past abuse and injury can be the means of bringing healing to another. What wonderful opportunities to make disciples!”

 Discipleship teaches us to Love our neighbor as our self.

“Notice that loving our neighbor would include: sharing with the poor and the alien; compassion and absolute honesty and justice in our relationships with others; impartiality; a refusal to be a party to gossip or slander; an absence of malice towards anyone and a refusal to bear a grudge; taking care never to put another’s life at risk and never taking private vengeance upon another. It is also interesting to note that when we have an issue with anyone, we should strive to make it right by going to him or her directly.

There is a clear command in the New Testament that we must give a higher priority to the needs of others than our own.  Don’t you feel that this is where the “church” has failed in the last several decades?

We need to engage the culture without sacrificing the gospel.  It is very easy to do one or the other.  My heart breaks because I was once a person who didn’t truly engage at all.  I would look at people thru the lens of society and/or what the media says NOT through the eyes of Christ.

Side note for those that read to the end (inserting smiley face!)  - God is leading me to being a discipleship/mentoring group – if interested – send me an email….loridean2000@gmail.com or Facebook me!!

Discipleship!

Christian growth….how do you define it?

More bible knowledge? Kinder and nicer? getting older?  Scott and I have been contemplating many aspects of active, healthy christian growth.  Evidence of christian growth can be seen in several major areas: hunger for God’s Word, confidence and obedience.  All of these are based out of love.  We are falling more in love with our Saviour daily.  The word of the Holy Spirit and God’s grace in us help us grow and show evidence of Christian growth.

Hunger for God’s Word – Hebrews 5:11-14 says that a growing Christian hungers for God’s Word.  The process of growing involves being taught and even corrected by God as we read His Word.  Mentoring and discipleship is huge.

Confidence – Confidence is knowing who God is, knowing He has a plan for our lives.  Knowing God will be with us, He won’t leave us or forsake us. He is there to help us.  Check out these verses: Hebrews 13:5-6, 2 Peter 3:9, and Ephesians 2:8-10  Confidence also comes from knowledge and God and his ways.

Obedience – We obey God, not out of restraint but out of willingness.  This is a different concept.  He loves us and in return we love him.

Some ideas that Scott and I are discussing:

• Are we sharing our faith and the goodness of Jesus’ death and resurrection  obviously to non-believers?
• Continuing in fellowship with believers?
• Maintain peace?
• Spending time in God’s Word?
• We are to deepen our walk and pursue Him!

I believe, as Scott and I continue to grow and mature in our faiths, our discussion become less “comfortable.”  God is stretching us, God is leading us, God is demanding more of us…..it is all exciting and scary at the same time.

God is showing us to lead more boldly and to help open the eyes of our amazing church body to the problems of the world.  God may not pull on everyone’s heart the same way but He will not let our heads be buried in the sand any longer.

Our desire is to bring awareness to many issues that people struggle and hurt over…social issues.  NRC is being called into actively helping people around in Tuscaloosa and around the world.

Over the next few days, I am going to be writing a series of post around some social issues.  Orphans, human trafficking, immigration, the poor…..be forewarned.

Side note for those that read to the end (inserting smiley face!)  - God is leading me to being a discipleship/mentoring group – if interested – send me an email….loridean2000@gmail.com or Facebook me!!

 

Exponential 13

Church planting conference…couldn’t attend this year….hopefully next year…Preaching/Teaching online……

Thoughts

Discipleship is “Follow my example as I follow Christ.”

We have got to make disciples. Fun nights and pizza nights are not going to sustain us.”

We have to make disciples along the way as we draw people to our churches.

As a leader, you can have public charisma without private character. Focus on your character first.  Methods are many, principles are few.  Methods change, principles never do.

Depression is a huge battle for church planters.

Are lost being saved? Saved being delivered? Delivered being redeemed? Redeemed changing the world?

If you can define your church without Jesus, you are doing it the wrong way.

The reality is the unchurched is the mass now, not churched or dechurched. Which means they know nothing about the bible and its stories.

 

Be and Ephesians 4 church.

The church is losing about 50K people a week! And we are not adding to the kingdom we are reshuffling the deck

 

Satan believes in prayer more than we do. That’s why he doesn’t want us praying.

We might end up with full sanctuary and not be making disciples

Jesus was not fancy, beautiful and did not fake anybody out…

Churches need to stop thinking of themselves as a landing zone but a launch zone.

Survey of what young adults want in church

1. Community

2. Social Justice

3. Depth

4. Mentor

Jesus never told us to plant churches he said make disciples.

With so many people playing church, it is not your responsibility to babysit spoiled, entitled Christians.

 

We are here to make disciples who make disciples. Everything else is a waste of time.

“Life’s too short to coddle church consumers and baby talk them to maturity.”

It would take a herculean denial to pretend Jesus wasn’t concerned about the poor

Build awesome disciples, not awesome churches.

It is impossible to live like Jesus & not make disciples-it is shockingly easy to do church & not make disciples

 

What are your thoughts?

Living life….

Do you ever have the times in your life where you feel a little overwhelmed?  Scott and I are going through one of those times right now and it amazes us how quickly these feelings hit.

Our children

bring us joy, love, excitement, stress, lessons, happiness, sadness…

We hurt when they hurt, we are excited when they are excited, we feel the stress that they feel.

As parents we want to give them their dreams, especially when we know God is orchestrated these dreams.

Ariel is headed to Uganda with Lifeline, where she must raise $4000 before the trip.  This trip is God orchestrated and will affect her future in multiple ways – missions, future employment, experience, compassion, and a depth for God and His people that can not be described in words.

Before this though is summer school, with tuition (and no scholarship help), rent for an apartment, food, and the additional expenses.  We are thankful that she only has to take one class but still….

God gives us random bright moments to remind us than life with Ariel is pure joy – 1. She passes her mandatory class to officially enter her major area of study! 2. Her excitement that builds for what HE is doing in Uganda. 3. And this little invite – a dream come true!

Dean’s soccer skills are developing through the connections he is making with ODP and different clubs/camps around the state. He has an official star rating on the college/club recruiting webpage.

He has been invited to several soccer ID College camps, etc that are making for a very expensive summer. Admittedly we are having to cut back a few of these because we just can’t afford them all but we are trying to do as much as we can.

Our concern with his new schedule is his time away from church.  I know that sports will often dictate church attendance and I really do not want to be that family.  The reality is that we will miss church some so we are taking a proactive approach to Dean’s spiritual development.  1st – we aren’t leaving it up to the youth minister alone.  2. I am scouting churches that have services on Saturday night, etc for us to attend. In all honesty, people now work on Sunday’s and I am thankful for churches that are growing in this direction! 3. We have discussed with Brian to meet with Dean each week to teach/disciple his as he misses some Wednesday nights at the beginning of the summer.

Our concern and passion for the Lord is no less because we will be busy for a month or two.  I ask God to forgive me for the times I have been critical of those that miss church.  As a ministers wife we sometimes become jaded when others can “take a weekend” and travel, etc. Maybe because church attendance reflects the pastors leading?  Now the shoe will be on the other foot.

Another concern will be about Dean’s focus on missions.  I know that God’s call on Ariel will be different from His call on Dean.  Scott and I both believe that God is going to use the soccer skills for missions.  Soccer is a world-wide sport.  We have been broken with the delay in the Haiti mission trip but we will be ready for it in December.  We are earnestly praying for a trip to Mexico in July.  Our desire is for Dean to see the REAL world and begin to see God’s call for his life.

And a lesson we are learning – sports and our faith can go hand in hand.