some good tips
Category Archives: Thoughts
Seasons of Life
I am about halfway through a good book. I love to read, fiction mostly, but I make sure I read at least one non-fiction a month. When I started to do the internet thing to promote myself as a writer, I stumbled upon a writer, Jeff Goins. He was full of good writing advice and encouragement. I downloaded several of his free “Manifesto’s” and liked his style. So when he offered his latest non-fiction book as a pre-order I jumped at the chance. I just now got around to reading it. The title is “The In-Between-Embracing the Tension Between Now and the Next Big Thing.” The book is great and it isn’t just about writing. Everyone should read it, especially those just out of college. It has me thinking.
My husband and I are (hopefully) coming up on an early retirement. We’ve worked hard for years. His first job at 13 and mine at 15. We have dairy-farmed together, made shake blokes, and logged, separately we have managed book stores, worked in factories, deli’s, taught school, worked in daycares, a hospital and remodeled 13 homes, just to name a few. My husband works harder than most men I know. He has worked most of that time with the results of a broken back at age 17, which resulted in crushed and missing vertebrae, as well as several fused. In the last 6 years he has had to surgeries due to a work related injury, one on his neck and one on his shoulder. He still works, hard, sometimes 60 hours a week in a factory. So we are looking forward to retirement. He’s a few years from 60 and I’ll be 50 next year, in today’s workforce that would be an early retirement.
Two years ago we took a trip to Georgia in February (our coldest month). We came back with a plan to sell our home and move south. We listed the house and started surfing the net for houses and business in the area, talked about it and got excited. Then a friend of mine who said she hated for us to move said, “Couldn’t you buy a house there for the winter and still stay here the rest of the year?” My reply, “Short of a miracle, we could never afford two houses.” But she got me thinking… (Thanks Sara). My husband for years joked around about selling everything and living in a camper, traveling like a gypsy. I always grouched and crabbed and reminded him how much I moved around as a kid, not to mention the 14 housed we have lived in since our marriage (which included several states). But after my conversation with my friend, and with some modifications, it wasn’t sounding so bad.
Now we are still showing our house, believing God is working in this less than perfect housing market. We still surf the net, but now we are looking at diesel motor homes with a slide out, a bedroom and a bathroom. We have family in Kentucky, and Tennessee, a daughter in Arkansas, a son 200 miles away (in Wisconsin), a daughter a few blocks away who can’t wait to get to someplace warmer, and our parents and siblings are in Washington state. We just got back from a 16 day trip to Washington to visit our parents and siblings. We hope to travel so that we can spend time with them all, and to see the parts of the U.S. that we haven’t so far in our travels.
So what does all of this have to do with Jeff’s book? We have been looking forward impatiently to retirement so much, that we have neglected the good things in our waiting time. My husband’s job is getting harder on his body, the sub zero temps and the long winters aren’t fun anymore. We miss our far away families in a way that we didn’t when we had kids at home. So “The In-Between” has reminded me of the importance of enjoying where you are now. Not that I’d completely forgotten, I just have been spending more time daydreaming about my future than looking for the blessings in my now. Jeff says in his book, “Maybe, I thought, God is less concerned with exactly what I am doing and more concerned with who I am becoming.” I have only recently started writing and have had some discouragements in the amount of sales. We are coming up on another winter and want to be out of here. But God has a plan. He wants us to continue to grow and stretch, and that happens just as much, if not more, in the waiting times, than in the active times.
When God’s chosen people were taken captive by Babylon, God told them it would be 70 years before He would begin to bring them back to Jerusalem. Now that is waiting. He also told them to build houses, take wives, and plant vineyards. He knew that they needed to be productive and provided for during their waiting time (Jeremiah). So are you waiting for something, a spouse, a great job, a vocation, calling or ministry? Are you impatient and spend more time in the future than in the now? Take Jeff’s advice and embrace the waiting. You’ll be blessed and way less stressed.
By the way, if you want to check out Jeff’s blog, here is the link.
http://goinswriter.com/build-popular-blog/
Consider Jeremiah
God called Jeremiah at a young age, telling him that before He formed him in the womb, He knew Jeremiah-consecrated and appointed him a prophet-before he was even born (Jer. 1:4-10). Jeremiah was concerned about his immaturity, but God commanded him to go and speak, and placed His word in Jeremiah’s mouth. From the very beginning God told Jeremiah that He watched over His word to perform it (verse 12), and that He would use Jeremiah to pronounce judgment over His people.
Sounds like a fun calling…Obviously God knows it was going to be rough as He tells Jeremiah in verse 17, “Now, gird up your loins, and arise and speak to them all which I command you. Bo not be dismayed before them, lest I dismay you before them.” He encourages Jeremiah in verse 18 by saying that He had strengthened him. God then tells him in verse 19, “‘and behold they will fight against you, but they will not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you,’ declares the Lord.”Israel had exchanged their glory for that which does not profit, chasing after other Gods. Israel had done two evils according to God. First they had forsaken Him, and secondly, they had hewn their own cisterns instead of taking His living water. The word that Jeremiah had to give wasn’t an easy one. It wasn’t “I haven’t seen you in Church lately,” or, “you need to read your Bible more.” No, he was to declare them as “harlots, prostitutes, and faithless adulterers. He had to tell them that God had given them their divorce papers, because they had even polluted the land.
Jeremiah did it! That is what amazes me. I a time when false prophets were the norm, he chose to do what God told him, to say what God said-knowing that the people would not listen to him (Jer. 7:27). God even warned him in 11:18-19 that the people were plotting to kill him. Not only was he responsible for telling God’s chosen people that punishment was coming, he had to do all of these strange object lessons to prove his point. He did it all knowing that they wouldn’t turn their hearts to God, knowing full well that they were going to be given over into the hands of their enemy and slaughtered. Why would he do this fruitless task? Because God told him to, plain and simple. He did complain, and even cursed the day he was born. He cried and lamented the plight of his people and at one time pleaded for them. But God had had enough.
Jeremiah was beaten, cast into a cistern of mud, put in stocks. He was mocked and was made a “laughingstock” to all of those around him. Jeremiah 20:7-9 says, “O Lord, you deceived me, and I was deceived, you overpowered ma and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long. But if I say, “I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,” His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.” Yes, he had his moments of pity partying. But let’s move on to verse 11, “But the Lord is with me like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced; their dishonor will never be forgotten.”
God showed Jeremiah the destruction of His people. But He also showed Jeremiah their salvation. “’The days are coming,” declared the Lord, “when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In His days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which He will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.’” God never leaves us hopeless. True to His promise, He preserved Jeremiah as well as a remnant of His people and sent the Savior.
So consider Jeremiah…What has God asked you to do? Did you think it was a hard thing? Do you still?
Our Beautiful Country
Just got back from another trip across the US. We live in Wisconsin and all of our siblings and our parents live in Washington State. So we have made the trip quite often. We try to go a different way every time, but basically, other than taking all the back roads, there are three ways. We are always on limited time so we hurry. Several times we drove straight through without sleep, taking turns behind the wheel (my husband doing 90%). This year we had two days, so still in a hurry, and though I tend to sleep a lot in the car, it struck me once again, how beautiful and diverse our country is. We saw green fields, sunflowers, mountains ( of various shapes and sizes), rivers, creeks, sagebrush, cattle, antelope, deer, eagles, evergreens. The scenery changed almost by the hour. I feel blessed to see part of what God has gifted us with here in America. We found ourselves planning our motorhome retirement more than ever.
Chronicles of the Kings
God called David, “A man after my own heart.” He made a promise to this young shepherd-turned King, to always keep one of David’s heirs on the throne. This line started with David’s son Solomon and went all the way to Jesus (who still happens to occupy the throne and hold the title of “King.”) Starting with Solomon, David’s heirs were not faithful to continue in their father’s footsteps. During Solomon’s reign he worshipped false Gods and led the people astray. So God separated His Chosen People into two groups, Judah who kept the throne of David and ruled in Jerusalem and Israel who ruled in Samaria. Israel had a string of leaders who mostly fought for the throne, while Judah continued to have David’s seed as their kings.
Read Kings and Chronicles as well as the prophets and you will quickly see that the very people that God had chosen to have as His own, turned their backs on Him. They built altars to foreign gods, worshipped and sacrificed to false gods; they even profaned the temple that David had dreamed of building for the Lord. They went as far as even sacrificing their own children to Molech, by throwing them into the mouth of the idol, which was a fiery furnace. Over and over through the lineage of those kings from Judah and Israel we read how they “did evil in the sight of the Lord,” and led God’s people to do the same.
Every now and then there was a light in the darkness, a prophet who really heard from God, a king who “did good like his father David.” They were few and far between and all but one, never removed one hundred percent of the idols and temple of the false gods, or restored the temple worship, sacrifices and the law. Only Josiah, who was only eight years old when he became king, did. He tore them down, pulled the altars to false gods out of the temple, crushed them into dust and let them wash away in the river. Then at the ripe age of sixteen he is given the book of the law that had been sitting unused in the temple. Once again God’s children renewed their faith in Him and they repented and followed the practices set up by God.
At his death, the next king, his very own son, “did evil in the sight of the Lord.” I read all of this and the one thing that stands out the most (no, not the stupidity of the people) is God’s patience! If I was Him, I would have given up after Solomon…So why did He keep trying? Why did He come when they remembered to call on Him? Because of the promise He had made to King David, all those generations ago, generations of unfaithful, hard hearted, stiff necked and rebellious people, that a son of David would always sit on the throne.
So even in His anger, when He used other nations to chastise the people and scatter them from their own land, He preserves the seed of David and a “Remnant” of His people. God was faithful to an unfaithful people. He preserved the line from David all the way until Jesus, the Son of David.
So what has God promised you? He is faithful. If He said it, He will bring it to pass. It might not always look like its coming, or come when we want it to, but it’s there. He is always watching over his word to perform it, (Jeremiah 1:12). Beware- don’t sin as the children of Israel and Judah did and expect God to move on your behalf. He clearly states in Zephaniah 3:12, that the remnant He preserved were, “A humble and lowly people and they will take refuge in the name of the Lord.” Those are the ones who inherit the promises.
Search the Scriptures
John 5:39 “Search the scriptures for in them ye think you have eternal life: but they are they which testify of me.”
Jesus told the religious leader of his day that in their searching of the scriptures they had missed the main point-finding him. Learning who He is, what He does, His will and purpose for our lives, His blessings and His love.
“The Greek word for search signifies a strict, close, diligent, curious search, such as men make when they are seeking gold, or hunters demonstrate when they are earnestly pursuing game. We must not rest content with having given a superficial reading to a chapter or two, but with the candle of the Spirit, we must deliberately seek out the hidden meaning on the Word…No man who merely skims the Book of God can profit thereby; we must dig and mine until we obtain the hidden treasure.” Charles Spurgeon-“Evening by Evening”
Think of those scavenger hunts as a child. How I loved those! You received your first clue-that led to the next-that led to the next. The treasure was never close at hand, or easily obtained. You had to figure out the next location from a few simple words. Sometimes the clues got harder as you went along. Most of the fun was in the searching out the meaning of the clues and the next location-but always at the end there was treasure.
If searching scripture or studying scripture (as opposed to just reading) is new to you and you don’t know how to start, you have several options. You can purchase a bible study or find one online that will take you through the process of study on a specific topic. I advise you to start with either who you are in Christ or who He is. Another option is to join, or start a bible study with a good teacher who will lead you in your study. There are also many good study Bibles available with cross references and study guides that you can tackle on your own. As you grow in this you will be able to study the things that God is laying on your heart, with the Holy Spirits leading you through the hunt with clues and promises of treasure.