Relationship – Page 2 – Reflecting His Heart Ministries

For Such a Time as This

Leave a Comment / Encouragement, Hope, Relationship / Jennifer / March 21, 2020

“When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I.” ~ Psalm 61:2 Have you ever been at the top of a mountain and looked out over the valley below? Most views from that vantage point are absolutely breathtaking, aren’t they? When I lived in Alaska, I would marvel at the grandeur of God’s creation. There were beautiful, snow covered mountains all around me. I never grew weary of looking at them. I was in complete awe when I’d think all of that majestic beauty was spoken into existence. God said the words and the mountains appeared. Nothing is impossible for Him. Absolutely nothing. Yet, even as I gazed upon and marveled at those breathtaking views God placed on the earth, my heart was overwhelmed when I realized the mountains weren’t what God considered His greatest creation. Nor did He consider the oceans or the finest detail of the solar system that spins above us as His greatest work. While all of those things are good and shout the magnificence of our amazing God, they still don’t even come close to His greatest creation. And what would that be, you ask? It’s a very easy question to answer. God’s greatest creation is US! You and me! When God created the heavens and the earth, He said it was good. When He created us, He said it was very good. He didn’t use those two words for anything else on earth except for us. We are very good. I’ve been thinking about that for the past few weeks as our world has been turned upside down over an airborne enemy that we cannot see. I have never experienced anything like this before and I would guess, you haven’t either. Our world has come to a stand-still seemingly overnight. I am not downplaying the seriousness of our situation whatsoever. In fact, it’s quite the contrary. What is happening in our world is very serious and we should take every precaution to protect ourselves and those we love. But, now more than ever, we should be turning our eyes heavenward and running to the Rock that is higher than we are. God has an amazing vantage point. He sees us. He sees our situation. He knows what is happening. None of this is a surprise to Him. He knew it would happen before the foundation of the world. He knew you’d be right where you are, at this very moment, caught up in an unknown situation, without a lot of answers. And it’s in moments exactly like this, He is closer to us than ever. I know that may not make logical sense but I know that I know that I know it’s true! I have lived it. It’s my testimony. When my former spouse walked out on me two plus years ago, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do. Where would I live? Where would I work? How would I pay bills? I was caught up in an unknown situation, without a lot of answers. I had a choice to make. Do I run from God or do I run to God? I am thankful to say I chose the latter. I knew my situation was not a surprise to Him. He knew it would happen before the foundation of the world. Did He want me to be crushed and feel unfathomable grief? I do not believe He did. However, did He allow it to happen so He could show me Who He is and what He could do with a life situation that crushed me to my very soul? That’s an easy answer as well. Yes, He did. I didn’t see it then but I clearly see it now. If He hadn’t allowed all of those events to take place in my life back then, I would not be who I am now. I would not be at peace. I would not be free from abuse. I would not have this amazing ministry I share with my best friend. I would not have you to encourage or to lift up in whatever situation you’re faced with. But, most of all, I wouldn’t know who God truly is and how very much He loves me. He allowed all of that grief and pain to touch my life because He loves me. I didn’t understand that two years ago but I understand it now. God loves us so much that He sent His one and only Son into this crazy, sinful world to become one of us. He was fully God and fully man at the same time. He experienced every single thing we experience in this life yet He was without sin. The writer of Hebrews penned it best this way: “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” ~ Hebrews 14:15 & 16 NASB The high priest mentioned in this scripture is Jesus! He is our High Priest. And I am in absolute awe how the second part is phrased. Let us draw near with confidence to God’s throne of grace! Do you know what that means? It means we can come before God boldly because of what Jesus has done for us. Not boldly in a prideful way but humbly and confidently that He will hear us and listen when we call on Him. Jesus’ sacrificial death and His resurrection 3 days later, enables us to have a personal relationship with God the Father and He wants to hear us. He wants to know we want Him, we need Him, and cannot get through this life without Him! I know I couldn’t. In this time when fear is rampant and we’re facing a situation we

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Modern Day Manna

Leave a Comment / Healing, Relationship, Revelation / Jennifer / September 30, 2019

I am in training. When I started my job, my employer sent me for a week of training at our operations center. A few weeks before, I received several emails with instructions on where to book my hotel, directions on how to get there, items I needed to take with me, and the most important one, how to submit an expense report when I returned to be reimbursed for what I had paid out of my own pocket. I did all they told me to do without once worrying about how much my credit card was going up because they said I would be reimbursed. I believed them. I trusted them to keep their word to me as their employee. The company took care of my needs for the week because they wanted to ensure I concentrated on the training that was critical for being successful at the job they’d hired me to do. As I continue to walk through this current season of my life, I am learning more and more every day, God has placed me in training. He is training me to trust Him more. He is training me to be content. He promised in His precious word that He has “a plan to prosper me and not to fail; to give me a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11). Over the past few weeks, God has shown me that while I’ve been looking forward to all He has planned for me in the years ahead, I haven’t been paying attention to the smaller things He wants to teach me along the way. My focus has been too broad. I have been fixated on the future…thinking I’d just wake up one day and all that He promised would have happened overnight. Somehow there would be a deposit into my checking account, from an unknown source, to pay all of my debt in full or my manager would come to me at work and tell me I was receiving a bonus for a job well done. I thought He would snap His fingers, my debt would be paid in full, and all my worries would be left behind me in one fell swoop! The problem with that last sentence? The first two words…I thought… “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” ~Isaiah 55:8-9 I believe, with all my heart, God could have chosen to orchestrate the events of my life to accomplish the exact scenario above. But what would I have learned? Yes, it certainly would have reaffirmed to my heart that He is my Provision and only He could have done it but it wouldn’t teach me (or train me) to live within the provision He’s already given me, would it? If He just miraculously erased all my debt, why would I need to trust Him day to day? I would be debt free but knowing me as He does, it wouldn’t be long before I’d be back in the same hole then we’d be right back where we started. Truth be told, I have been here, in this hole, more than once in my life and it’s time to learn to trust Him for my needs and not American Express. If you read my last post, Details, Details, Details, I wrote my ex has stopped paying alimony. Had I not been so angry and taken it to God right when it happened, He would have shown me that it was He who allowed it and was just part of His overall plan. Instead, I spent money on an attorney who basically told me to wait until he owed me a huge debt then “go after him”. Those words didn’t set well with me. When she said it, I realized I had allowed my pain and anger to control my actions. I didn’t want to “go after him” and realized that God didn’t want me to either. I felt very convicted as I returned to my car after that meeting. I was out $150 and had accomplished nothing. As I sat there, He whispered to me, as He so often does, when He can get me quiet enough to listen, that He wants to be my provision. He wants to take care of me. He removed my ex from my life for a purpose and He didn’t want me relying on him or his money. Pursuing him later for a huge debt would only prove to stir up anger and resentment within my heart and line my attorney’s pocket with a grand sum. How does that bring honor and glory to God? I wiped my tears with resolve in my heart that I had nothing to fear. When the children of Israel were delivered after 430 years of slavery in Egypt, they took provisions with them that would sustain them for a period of time. God had already brought them through the Red Sea and they were living in the wilderness. When the provisions they’d brought with them ran out, the people grumbled against Moses and said they would’ve been better off had they stayed in Egypt because, at least, they had food everyday. They had been delivered from slavery just long enough to forget what was bad about being enslaved and only remembered what they were missing. Seems they’d already forgotten they were forced to make bricks without straw, not to mention the whips they encountered from time to time. (Exodus 16) I have heard this story hundreds of times in my life and have wondered every time how the children of Israel could have had such a selective memory. How they could only focus on what they were missing and not how badly they were treated. How every day they cried out to God for deliverance and yet when He did just that, all they wanted to

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Surrounded

Leave a Comment / Encouragement, Hope, Relationship, Strength / Jennifer / January 4, 2019

Have you ever felt surrounded? A few months ago, I listened to a sermon series called Maybe: God. The series centered on how to discern God’s voice from our own thoughts. Usually, after hearing a series of messages that have impacted me as these have, there will be a time of testing. God will allow a situation to come into my life to test me on what I’ve learned. Not to show Him because He already knows but to show me. What continues to amaze me is when the test comes, I don’t even realize it’s a test until I’m right in the middle of it. This time was no different. You’d think I would have figured out the way God works in my life by now but I haven’t. I don’t think I ever will. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth so are My ways higher than your way and My thoughts than your thoughts.” ~ Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV I absolutely love this scripture! I will never be able to figure out God’s ways or the mystery or the wonder of Him but that is what is so amazing! It’s His overwhelming, unconditional, and everlasting love and the mystery and the wonder of Him that draws me to Him more and more! The more He works in my life and shows me more of who He is, the more I want to know Him and make Him known! A few weeks ago, I was faced with a decision. One that could have potentially impacted others. I really didn’t know what to do because (I have to admit) I was angry over the situation I was being faced with so, of course, I had my own agenda and a plan for what I expected to happen so there was a battle going on in my mind for control. I knew what my flesh wanted to do. My flesh wanted to fix the issue now but then I was quietly reminded of some key points from the sermon series that went on to jog my memory of a few times in the past when I’d made angry and/or impulsive decisions and doing what I thought was best. Those memories didn’t remind me of good times. So, first of all, I asked God to forgive me then decided to talk to Him about it. It didn’t take Him long to share His thoughts with me. He immediately brought a scripture to my mind and it couldn’t have been more on point. Could He have been more clear?! The reference for this verse is found in Exodus 14. The children of Israel had just been set free from 430 years of bondage in Egypt. They had traveled across the desert towards God’s promised land and between them and their promise stood the Red Sea. Added to the stress as they tried to figure out how to cross the massive body of water, Pharaoh and his Army were in hot pursuit of them. They were surrounded. So what did they do? Did they drop to their knees in prayer and call out to their God, who had just set them free from years of bondage? They did not! Instead, they whined and complained to Moses. (Absolutely no judgment here. I am just like them. I’m guilty of whining and complaining when things don’t go my way sometimes. Probably in much the same way I sounded to God when I started whining through my anger.) So what did Moses tell them? “Fear not…stand firm and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you…you need only to be silent.” ~ Exodus 14:13-14 ESV Has God ever told you to be silent?! I am so thankful for the directness of this passage and how it leapt off the page in my bible and slapped me in the face! I had absolutely no doubt as to what God wanted me to do. He wanted to me to stop whining and be silent. He knows my anxious, controlling, planning self and He needed to be clear. He’s been here with me a few times in my life and He knows how to get my attention. So, in obedience, I chose to remain silent and take my agenda off the table. No more trying to figure things out on my own. No more expectations of what I thought God should do. You’d think after all the amazing things I’ve seen Him do over the past few years, that I’d have learned by now that He is the One who started this work in me and He will be faithful to complete it (Philippians 1:6). But I’m still human and choose my own way sometimes. So, from that point on, I purposed in my heart to wait on Him and be silent. Which was then followed by such an amazing peace and I knew that whatever happened, He was there, and I was okay. Then I picked up my journal and drew out what I felt the Spirit was speaking into my heart. This poor excuse for a drawing is the culmination of several sermons. Essentially, this depicts me walking into unknown territory with the situations in my life surrounding me on either side. To my right, I have things that come with just living life and, regrettably, some are of my own making. These are the slippery/precarious ones. And to my left, are the events from my past. These are the thorny/painful ones. I am surrounded but God is with me in the middle of it all. I am not an artist by ant stretch but somehow, drawing out the words that were flooding my mind helped me to see the situation from a different perspective.

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