From my journal September 25th,

"Make vows to the Lord your God, and fulfill them; let all who are around Him bring gifts to Him who is to be feared." Psalm 76:11

In pondering this as a "call to worship" this morning, I was moved to offer a gift to Him who is to be feared and praised, who saves us from all our distresses. But this is not the age of burnt offerings, and I cannot offer back to Him that ultimate sacrifice given to me. So what shall I give Him?

"I urge you therefore brethren by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship." Romans 12:1

"Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. And do not neglect doing good and sharing; for with such sacrifice, God is pleased." Philippians 4:15-16

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou will not despise." Psalm 51:17

"And Samuel said, 'Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.'" 1 Samuel 15:22

"For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings." Hosea 6:6

And so the Lord is speaking to me this morning. I desire to give Him praise and a gift that is worthy, but He does not want empty words and dutiful tithes, He wants my heart of obedience. I could leave it there on that poetic note, but there is a pricking of my heart that tells me there is a specific application for me today.

As I thumbed through "Love & Respect" [see my book list] last night, I came to the self-analysis page. I attempted to answer these questions:

• As a wife, am I too proud to make the first move and start being more respectful?
• As a wife, do I neglect to energize my husband by failing to meet his need to be respected?
• As a wife, do you give little thought to God calling you to show unconditional respect, especially when your husband is unloving?
• As a wife, do you justify your lack of respect and thus do not confess this sin to God?
• As a wife, have you put off making a decision to show God you reverence Him by showing respect to your husband?

And I was struck by this statement: "Ultimately you show your reverence to Christ when you unconditionally respect your husband. If you are not respecting your husband unconditionally, you are not reverencing Christ." !!!

I had to admit that I did not score well on the "quiz." The last statement was especially convicting because I have always focused on the positive flip side of that statement instead of seeing it for what it is. I have chosen to dwell on the fact that if I am respectful, even when I feel unloved that I am actually honoring Christ; but I have not examined the reverse of that, which has me dishonoring Christ when I lash out in disrespect.

In my "new life" where I am taking control of all that God has given me and bringing it into fruitfulness, I have had a renewed passion to dig deeper into the Bible and glean even more from it. It is just like God to bring me down from my lofty spiritual ideas and hit me with a very unethereal, quite practical truth. I can desire sweet intimacy with my Heavenly Father, but if I am living in a disrespectful way toward my husband, I annul my spiritual connection.

I long to bring God a gift. He is telling me what He wants from me. Will I offer it?

Well, I thought I should check in and let you know the latest. Call me crazy, call me overly optimistic, call me fanatical, but I have decided to enter the Body for Life Challenge for 2008. That means I have 12 weeks (9 now) to get in the best shape of my life. Of course they give you guidelines and a diet and exercises, etc, but the motivation has got to come from me. Anyone who knows me well is shocked to hear this about me. I am quite a "go with the flow" sort of person, not an adventurer or a leader. But lately, I have seen how that attitude has gotten me in trouble where I am living my life as a reactive victim. When I took a step recently and said "NO" to someone I loved, I couldn't believe how empowered I felt. It's the example that someone gave of the cart God instructed the believer to pull. God put one rock in it and said, "Take it to the top of the mountain." Away went the Christian, happy to do his duty for God. After a while, a friend came along and asked if the Christian could carry his little bag of pebbles to the top also. The Christian agrees of course (how could he refuse?) and then goes on his way. A stranger asks for assistance with his small rock and the Christian agrees again. Things go along in a similar way until the Christian is only half-way up the mountain and suddenly can't go any further because of the weight of the load. He calls out to God and wants to know why God gave him so much to bear. God comes to him and starts throwing all the other stuff out of the cart. "THIS is the only rock I called you to carry. They must carry their loads; you must carry yours."

I know it's just a story and probably not completely accurate doctrinally, but I think it does show how we can allow ourselves to be burdened by other people's loads. Sometimes it is true that we refuse to bear the load we HAVE been given, but for me, it was taking on the pressure of others' burdens (often even if they hadn't asked!) that was loading me down. Since I realized I could say NO, I've been doing all kinds of things I never thought I could. I realized I have control over my body (from a human perspective) and so I should be doing something with it. Thus, the crazy idea to enter the B4L Challenge. Well, it isn't so crazy to enter, I guess, the crazy part is that... I intend to WIN!!! Why does that sound disgraceful for a Christian to say? And yet Paul says in I Cor. 9:

24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.

25 Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

Is the spiritual realm the only area where we are to "run to win"? I think not. And so I am beating my body into submission (only a slight exaggeration) in order to win $25,000. It is already affecting my discipline in other areas. The kids are feeling it and so is my house!! I can't decide whether to post my "before" pictures or not. It's a little scary! Maybe I'll post them with my four week update. It doesn't seem so bad to show them to others as long as I can say it was past and now I look better!! Feel free to keep me accountable!

Hugs (but gently - my arms hurt!),

Kerrie

PS Ok, Jennifer talked me into it. Here are the pictures. I'm at 144 lb (I was 120 B.K. [before kids]) and am in a size 12 or an embarrassing 10. I have NO muscle tone, so I hope to lose 20 lbs of fat and gain 10 lb of muscle. I am still working on getting my body fat measured. I'll keep you posted.

YouTube - Voddie Baucham and Sarah Palin
     

Wow! I just came across this. I've been pondering on this lately, since I'm a radical conservative myself and yet I do believe a woman's place is in the home and at very least, not in leadership over men. I don't know that it is wrong for Palin to be where she is (although that is what my gut says), but I certainly do feel like it is a shame to our nation, not "progress." Just like Deborah's leadership was a shame to the men around her who refused to rise up, so Palin's position should be a wake-up call to all the men out there who have been abdicating their roles. It is certainly refreshing to see someone stand up for the right without wavering (referring to her abortion stance - not even for rape or incest) instead of trying to be a crowd pleaser and somehow appease all parties. I love Voddie here too and his unwavering adherence to the scriptures. I think they picked him because he is a black man (maybe an Obama supporter, they would think) and yet he refused to back down in the face of their name-calling. Praise God for him and other strong Christian men like him.

Kerrie

PS Here's a quote from Voddie Bauchum's blog (www.voddiebaucham.org/vbm/Blog/Blog.html):

Let me also say a word to those who argue that “we cannot hold political candidates to biblical standards.”  Why not?  What other standard is there?  Should we hold them to a Buddhist, Muslim,  or HIndu standard?  How about a Secular Human, neo-Marxist, or New Age standard?  What, pray-tell, should the standard be if not the Bible?  Do we have one standard for pro-life in the church and another for Mr. Obama?  Do we have one standard for pro-family in the church and another for Mrs. Palin?  I think not.  The whole point of my blogs was this:  We cannot trade in the Bible for pragmatic utilitarianism when election time rolls around. 

I stand with Jesus!  I’ll dump a political party in a heartbeat.  I am sick and tired of watching leading Evangelicals compromise in order to prevent the earth from turning to dust if the wrong guy is elected.  Where’s our faith?  We ought to speak God’s truth and let the chips fall where they may.  We must bow to no man.  If Mr. McCain  or Mr. Obama don’t want Evangelicals to say things that may hurt them in the polls, they ought to speak and act like the Christians they both claim to be.  Instead, they know that their constituencies within the Christian community (black liberals for Obama and white Evangelicals for McCain) will not speak too loudly when they get out of line because both groups are more concerned with winning than with truth.

I refuse to believe that following a party like sheep is the answer to our problems.  We must maintain our prophetic voice, and that voice must be consistently Scriptural.  I don’t have all of the answers.  I’m just trying to wrestle with the questions as honestly as I can. 

VB

A good morning to you, my loved ones - a term usually reserved for those related to one another, but equally applicable to those fellow members of the body of Christ! Today is obviously September 11th - the seventh anniversary of 9/11. We all have our memories of that tragic day. For me, it was a lesson of continuing on in the midst of trama. Miles was 71 days old and close to finally getting to go home from the NICU in Portland. He was finally off all ventilators and oxygen, but was having trouble gaining weight because of serious reflux and oral aversion issues. So September 11th was the day Miles was scheduled to get a g-tube. As my mom and I went to the hospital that morning in a state of shock over what was occurring in New York, it was amazing to see the hospital in full swing. As the rest of the nation "paused" for this event, the NICU had to stay right on task. Those doctors couldn't let the tragedy of the day keep them from assisting those in their own waiting rooms. Miles received his g-tube as planned, other babies were admitted to the NICU, and wounds were attended to.  I am grateful for the doctors and nursing staff that continued on that day in the midst of crisis. In the tragic moments of our lives, we can choose to give in to paralysis and despair, or we can realize that despite our pain, there are others who need our help and our care and our encouragement, and we can choose to offer those things as a sacrifice and watch God bring blessings in the midst of suffering.

Wow, I didn't plan to say all that when I sat down to type! All I meant to do was share with you this excerpt from a devotional by Ray Stedman. (www.raystedman.org) Coincidentally, it is about the pressures and trials of life. Be blessed!

For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body (2 Corinthians 4:11).

What we want, of course, is to be like Him. But the power of God is the miracle of others seeing in us, in the midst of our pressures and trials, the character and the life of Jesus. I have always been amused and challenged by the verse in Colossians 1, where Paul prays that his friends in Colosse may be "strengthened with all power according to his glorious might" (Colossians 1:11a). What are they going to use all this power for? It sounds as though Paul ought to say, "So that you can go about doing great miracles; so that you can astonish people with the tremendous magnetism of your preaching and teaching and be followed by great crowds." But that is not what he says. He says, "I pray that you may be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience (Colossians 1:11). That is what takes power; that is where the life and the power of God is manifest. That is the "life of Jesus."

...

Have you been in those circumstances recently, where no matter what you do you cannot seem to get any glory or credit for yourself? That is exactly where God wants you, because out of those times of inordinate pressure, times of hurt and despair and heartache and a sense of being wasted and not used, God is working His will. Others, perhaps, are being given life because of the death you are going through.

Lord, there are times when I go through trials. How my heart longs to cry out to You to deliver me from them. May I rather learn instead, Lord, that wonderful attitude of the Lord Jesus, "if it be possible, may this cup pass from Me. Nevertheless, not My will, but Thine be done."