Have a Little Talk

My daughter and I have a routine we follow most days when she gets home from school. I say, "Hi honey, how was your day?" She responds and then says, "How was your day?" Recently I responded with, "I'm wiped out! I had an argument with my friend." To which my sweet girl replied, "Moma, they need to talk to Jesus!" It made me smile, because my girl was so quick to take up for her Moma.

It also reminded me of a song that I grew up singing in church. And at the risk of revealing just how far in the South I grew up, it was called "Just a Little Talk with Jesus", I think! Here's the words to the part I remember:

Now let us have a little talk with Jesus

Let us tell him all about our troubles

He will hear our faintest cry he will answer by and by

And when you feel a little prayer wheel turnin'

And you will know a little fire is burnin'

Find a little talk with Jesus makes it right

So I took my sweet girl's advice and had a little talk with Jesus about the argument with my friend. God is good and brings restoration and reconciliation if we're willing. He did for me and my friend and used my teenager to help me see it was possible. Amazing.

For those of you wondering about the song, look what I found on the wonderful web. Click here for a treat, Elvis style! Be warned, you made feel the need to tap your feet. Just make sure no one is watching. Enjoy your day and have a little talk with Jesus everyday.

Shine

I had the privilege this past weekend to speak at Shine, an event for women at Hilton Head Island Community Church. It was such a blessing to see God moving in the hearts of these women to start small group Bible studies at their church. We talked a lot about the importance of making connections to the body of Christ as believers. Those connections are what hold us accountable and keep us grounded in God's Word. We used the model of the early church found in Acts to set-up what a small group looks like and how each of us can participate. Acts 2:42 taught us that the believers were devoted to:

• The teachings of Jesus (the study of God's Word)
  


• The fellowship (the small group and the church)
  


• The breaking of bread together (communion and sharing of meals)
  


• Prayer (for each other, the small group and the church at large)
  

As someone who has been involved with small groups for over half my life now, it was a great reminder for me. I just finished Max Lucado's book, Fearless, and in it he has some great thoughts about the desire for the church to connect physically to the body of Christ. He reminds us that it is possible because the church is the body of Christ. He says, "When you interlock your understanding with mine, and we share our discoveries…When we mix, mingle, confess, and pray, Christ speaks." That alone should make the sacrifice of our time and energy worth the commitment.

I am so thankful to Cynthia Cullen and her team for having me and my family with them this weekend. We are blessed.

Footloose

On Friday, I took my 13 year old daughter and her friend to see the movie Footloose. No biggie, I thought. It'll be fun to see the remake and to see if my daughter likes it as much as I did the first time around. In the opening scene, the music starts blaring the song Footloose. So like every other person in the theatre (and it was packed full), I started singing along. My daughter was mortified. I don't have this great voice but it couldn't be that bad. No one could hear me anyway…it was very loud. "Stop it mother, just stop!" Hannah was more than a little upset with me. I cracked up and told her to just listen…everybody else was singing along too. It was pretty funny.

Later I realized that I had justified my behavior the same way I tell my daughter not too. Oops! More often than not, I counsel her not to make choices based on what everybody else is doing. Rather I tell her to be intentional about what she's doing and to really consider what she wants.

Last week in Bible study we looked at a similar lesson in the book of Ruth. Towards the end of the book in chapter 3, Ruth goes to Boaz in the night and essentially asks him to take her as his wife. Boaz is a kinsman-redeemer, but he's not the closest one. Boaz could have done several things but he chose to do the right thing. He could have embarrassed Ruth, but he chose to protect her character. He could have taken her as his, but he chose to follow the customs of the day and bring the matter to the appropriate person. He does the right thing.

It was actually a message in the movie too! The young folks could have chosen to rebel and keep sneaking around. **Spoiler Alert** In the end, they choose to confront the real issue and be honest about what they want. And at the risk of being totally honest, I sang again at the end of the movie….'cause everybody else was! A work in progress, that's me.

Trust

Every day that I take my children to school we pass a police officer directing traffic. At my daughter’s school, the officer stands at an intersection that is pretty busy. The road the school is on runs perpendicular into a really busy street.
Once I drop my daughter off and head back towards the intersection, I’m usually going left. Some days the officer just motions for me to keep moving. It feels really strange, because technically I’m running a stop sign. But the officer told me too. (That sounds like my kids saying the dog ate their homework!) It’s true, at least in my case, that the officer told me to not that the dog ate my homework.
Some days I hesitate. Some days I completely stop and look for myself. And then some days, I roll right on through. It’s a matter of trust. The police officer wants the flow of traffic to run smoothly. His goal is safety and protection for those of us who pass through this intersection. I know that and yet some days I don’t trust it.

The same is true in my walk with Jesus. I know that He loves me and wants my best. (See John 3:16 and Jeremiah 29:11) I sense His direction and leading. He opens doors and provides opportunities. Some days I hesitate. Some days I do what I want to. And then some days, I roll with it. It truly is a matter of trust.

Power Suit

Do you remember watching Superman on tv? Clark Kent was the mild-mannered newspaper reporter by day, big black glasses and all. When he wanted or needed to do something great, he became Superman. He would dash off to the nearest closest or alley and come back with his blue tights and red cape on. With his power suit, he was faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! It was pretty exciting stuff to watch. The power suit gave him the ability to do more than the average person thought possible. Did you know that we too have a power suit defined by God that gives us the ability to do great things. It's described in Ephesians 6:13-18(NIV).

"Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints."

In her Bible study, Power Suit: The Armor of God Fit for the Feminine Frame, Sharon Norris Elliott teaches us much about wearing it well. Each chapter focuses on a portion of the armor andthe hindrances we need to shed in order to have a suit fitted for us. Can you imagine how silly Clark Kent would have looked putting on the blue tights and cape over his business suit? The image on our tv screen would have been hilarious and our belief in his ability greatly diminished. Ms. Elliott teaches us that we do the same with God's armor when we try to mask sin or hang on to things of this world while wearing God's armor. In order for truth, righteousness, peace, faith and God's Word to fit properly in our lives, we need to take off the old stuff, the sin that entangles us. Every day we need to dress in the newness of God's power, completely unhindered, and watch as God gives us the supernatural ability to prevail.

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ICRS 2011

Writing is a funny thing for me. Sometimes it flows easily and other times I have absolutely no desire to write anything. That's probably true about most things that we do. The agony occurs when I do have thoughts that I want to write about and there's no time to string the sentences together. It's frustrating. This is where I have found myself this summer, a long hot summer! Today, however, the kids have been back in school for a few weeks and the routine is coming back together. With that said, hopefully I'll be posting on a more frequent basis.

Much happened this summer that I want to tell you about. The biggest event for me was going to ICRS-The International Christian Retail Show held in Atlanta. This is where I went with my publisher to promote Every Day Faith. The show was three days of non-stop walking, talking and promoting the Bible study to the attendees at the show. The show is where retailers come to find products for their stores. They represented brick and mortar stores, on-line stores and church stores from all over the world. I met folks from just about every state in the U.S., Korea, the Philipines, Trinidad, China, and many other places that I can't remember. It was exciting and an amazing time to see how God is at work all over the world. It was also fascinating to meet authors of all types of genres. I was especially impressed with the number of authors that were from Georgia.

Since this was my first time attending the show, I had no idea of what to expect. I certainly didn't anticipate the number of books that I would be given. This picture is just a portion of the books that we received over the three days. I don't know the count, but I'm pretty sure I have enough to open a small store of my own! Since then I've given many of them away, read quite a few and put some away as resources for my next Bible study.

Funny story about the picture. The book sitting toward the far right corner is called, "52 Ways to Wow Your Husband". My nine year old son was sitting with me as I sorted the books and he asked, "What do you need that book for?" To which I replied, "Don't you think I need to wow your Daddy?" He says, "No, I think He's wowed enough!" The picture is so blurry because I was cracking up laughing. Out of the mouth of babes….

Author's Beat

The Author's Beat is a site that carries interviews with lots of authors. I had the privilege of recording with them last week about Every Day Faith. Once I got past the butterflies, it was a lot of fun.


Here's the link below. Just click on the title once you're on their site.


Also, please leave a comment to let them know what you think. Diana Kay and her husband, John, were very nice and encouraging to this new author. I really appreciated their invitation.

Every Day Faith on the Author's Beat