Hebrews 13:5,
Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
First, I just want to say I’m sorry for not posting more in the past two weeks. I am really swamped, plus we are really close to adopting and the spiritual warfare has really been ramping up. Also, my last post was just a fictional story 😉 (In hindsight, I probably should have put that somewhere in the story itself, my bad!)
A couple thoughts I wanted to share. I feel like my soul got hit by a bus the past few days. My wife and I were all excited to take a weekend trip tomorrow and leave our big kids with the grandparents, and then the babysitters canceled. I went to my ear, nose and throat doctor and got a new nose spray (my allergies are out of control), only to pay out the $30 bucks, get home, open it up and realize it’s the exact stuff I’ve been using the past year on and off and already have in my medicine cabinet. He also thinks I might have either a small benign tumor in my parotid gland or an enlarged lymph node, but isn’t concerned and just wants to watch it. I have been basically a borderline hypochondiac in the past and I. can’t. stop. thinking. about. it. Or reading about it on Google. Or even watching videos about people who had them removed. Plus, my blood pressure (which was perfect last week) was through the roof at the doctor’s office. I want to be spending more time with my kids after work. I never get time to workout, I don’t even get time to do my Hebrew or Greek. I feel like my health is running for the toilet and all the other stuff I’ve built up in Christ is just getting depreciated. I feel weak. We are weeks away from adopting and it’s like Satan has just opened the windows and let a host of bats into our house and lives to crap all over our furniture and spread filth and disease. And it’s 11:01pm, I have a 6:30am Greek class and work after that. I’ve been up processing and I’m struggling. And I’m about to do the dishes, we had meatballs (super yummy), the pan smells like fart.
I guess it’s not that bad. But I wrestle with questions about myself sometime. Especially when the lights dim and it gets a little spooky spiritually around me. Do you ever get the feeling that you aren’t doing it right? I remember having a great conversation with my regular physician, a really strong believer, talking about how life with God is a lot like going through school. Each year we graduate to another level which means even harder tests than before. Sometimes, like the last day or two, I have been scared that I have messed up and that my delusions and messed up-ness have resulted in chaos. I know better, but I don’t feel it. Oh, how I long sometimes just to hear my Father’s voice (I’m tearing up writing this) in a dream and just have him hug me and say I am with you, I love you, I will never, ever leave you. You can do all things through my Son. I love you.
Why do I crave that reassurance? Why?
I want it.
John 1:1,
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
This, his Word, is enough. It is. But I think there are times when I would love to have that extra little bit. You know what I mean? I want the vision. I want the dream. I want the angel to appear to me. I’ve been a believer for 15 years, doesn’t that count at all? Can’t I get a little something God? Just a peek at you or a grab of your hand so that I feel you in the dark? I know the answer here. I know it. I know what I would say to someone who said those words to me! I’d say nope, his Word is enough, he just wants you to trust him. But still…
I love him. I desire him. I want him more than anything this world has to offer.
Psalm 73:25,
Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
Growing up in Christ can be difficult. We have to do it. We are doing the most monumental task, become like Christ. It’s a lot! I’m not even close here on this one. But I’m moving forward, taking it one day at a time as Jesus told us to.
I hope you all are having a wonderful week 🙂 Yay Friday! Let me know in the comments how you are and if there’s anything I can agree with you in prayer over! I especially hope you are deeply blessed by the joy of being in Jesus’ presence in your soul and heart. God bless!
Joel
inthedesertwithjesus 
In my last post I shared about something that grieves me. I felt like I was loosing faith – but then I got a mail who spoke about how Jerusalem celebrates the events to come, the wedding feast and the 8th day, and I literally went down crying on the floor – thinking “This is what I want!!” – and I found YAHWEH. No matter the reason why we grieve or struggle, if you search for Him, ask Him and trusts Him – He will reveal Himself to you. But you do… sometimes… have to hit rock bottom.
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Oh don’t say that Lene! Let’s not talk rock bottom here. Lol! I’m kidding 😉 well, hoping.
I’m such a bad blogging follower 😦 I missed your last post. I’ll read it, I need to hear this! And yes that is EXACTLY the kind of moment I want with God!
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Think about it – when you hit “rock bottom”, you hit the ROCK… yeah? I reached the point where my soul and Spirit was just grieving to a point where I frankly was beginning to loose faith in the church and His people… Not their well intentions, but the action that didn’t really seem to happen. At least it was hard for me to see it. It’s usually around Halloween time that I go through some heavy motions that just slams me against the wall… but this year – I asked my Lord… well, you’ll get it when you read my post 😉
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That’s deep…The Rock Jesus. I like it! Ah, I’m sorry. Losing faith in his people is awfully hard. My heavy emotions are usually in the spring – lol, when the flowers are blossoming and it’s warmer weather I really just wanna draw the blinds and make a man cave and pretend it’s still winter. Ok, I’ll read it friend and let you know what I think 😉
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You wanna make a man cave during spring time? That has GOT to be caused by your allergies… LOL 😉
(I just have a hard time dealing with halloween).
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Allergies and some bad memories lol. The allergies get worse every year, the bad memories get better every year. The net effect is the same lol.
I’m curious, what about with Halloween? Is it just the evil connotations that it can have? Or is it personal?
LOVED your post btw. I want that experience, I do. I want it bad.
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Thanks – I know; Nothing competes with when YAHWEH overwhelms you!! Ask and you shall receive…
Sorry about the allergies friend! I hope you can see a 2nd opinion doctor and return the medicines you got “renewed”…
Halloween… well, first of all I did not grow up with it because it’s an American thing and it wasn’t known in Scandinavia or Europe when I was a kid (despite all saints day is Roman Catholic and the Vatican is in Italy!?!). That makes it a lot easier for me to reject. I definitely don’t like the evil connotations it can have, but I think my main reason to not like it is the simple fact that “everything inside me is resisting it” and I don’t think that’s a coincidence… If you scroll down a post from my “Loosing faith – finding YAHWEH” post, you’ll find my “All Holy Saint’s night” post which is about Halloween 😉
Love and Blessings to you.
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Amen! Oh I just love being in his presence. There’s nothing that feels better, gives me more joy than just laying in his arms 🙂 It’s the best!!
Thank you! He increased the dosage on what I had been on, and it’s actually been working. It’s an improvement, which I’ll take 🙂
You had me totally stumped on the All Saints Day connection there Lene! I just read this primer to get up to speed (https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=6210)
Is there a connection though other between the roman catholic church’s All Saints Day and Halloween? This author is going to be biased, since he is catholic. Or was it just a coincidence? That’s super interesting though. I didn’t know any of that.I don’t like the evil connotations it has either, but at the same time I haven’t really researched it much. I kinda just went with the flow and just did the trick or treat thing for fun with the kiddos.
I’ll read your post! Hope you’re having a wonderful Tuesday! It’s still Monday this side of the Pacific 😉
So tell me, what’s Scandinavia like?
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In short; The Roman Catholic church has many saints and they are all prayed to depending on what request you have… so the church decided to join all these saints into 1 day to be used as “all saint’s evening/day”. When the church arrived in the Celtic realms and found this annual tradition of “dressing up to avoid the evil spirits possessing you” done on equinox or about the church managed to somehow connect that with other more or less celtic traditions which could be used together with other weird things, such as the apple bobbing (a roman goddess of apples named pomona… apple – eden – ring a bell?) and the carving of pumpkins with the legend of Jack who made a deal with the devil which the devil obviously broke as he’s a liar so now Jack is forever roaming the earth as God won’t let him into heaven and devil won’t let him into hell… all in all Joel, there are so many ancient traditions involved in Halloween that if we don’t keep our tongues straight and run it by the BOOK – we will get confused and give in to celebrating something that is actually not anything the Lord would want His people to be celebrating – which in turn is exactly where the devil wants us.
Scandinavia? Well… it’s lovely… in what aspect thought?
Love in Jesus
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That is REALLY interesting! I did not know that, especially about pomona…apples and eden, it’s right there. Or about the Jack O Lantern. Wow. That’s disturbing. Maybe I really should investigate this deeper as the spiritual leader of my family for next year.
You’re right, we have to run it, along with everything else through the Word and if it doesn’t jive, toss it. I agree, amen. Definitely have given me some items to think and pray about.
Scandinavia…well, everything from the land and the people to the history. Where I live was essentially taken over by America in the last 150 or so years. So we don’t really have that history spanning centuries upon centures (there is in the northeast parts of the country though). is there a lot of history built into the landscape and architecture. And spiritually, do you have any comments on that and Christianity in Scandinavia? Love to hear more! 🙂
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I’ll definitely encourage anyone to look deeper into Halloween before they just take the commercialized perspective… I’m grateful you are being open to investigate yourself!
I think perhaps Scandinavia is worth a blog post in itself… Really, the history alone would fill several posts… Vikings, Royal family, agriculture, Christianity (Did you know the Viking king was baptized in a barrel usually containing Mjoed (old danish beer)?), H.C. Andersen…
I’ll give it some thought… first I have some “indifference” thinking to do 😉
Love to you friend.
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Now THAT is history! Our Viking king was baptized in a barrel of Danish beer! That’s bragging rights! What was the HC Andersen reference? I’m not too familiar with that author.
Well, don’t be too “indifferent” on writing a Sandinavian one either! I wanna hear more of this! Blessings friend!
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Perhaps he was baptized in water IN a barrel used for beer… Had there been beer in it, he probably would have drunk it all! That’s the legend… Truthfully I don’t know… I know that Harald Bluetooth was baptized in 960 and allegedly that was when Scandinavia became Christians, but it took another 1-200 years before the people accepted it. We are a stubborn people 😉
Hans Christian Andersen – the fairytale writer? Trust me – Disney knows him 😉 :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Christian_Andersen
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Oh, ok, now I know who you are talking about. We are Disney crazy in this house so I know exactly what you mean now.
It’s more epic if he was baptized in beer lol. But I guess we should hope it was water, right? 😉 I have to admit I’m learning a lot I did not know about Danish history. Super cool. I can’t wait to just drop Harald Bluetooth’s name at the next dinner party we have, just to get that reaction. haha! 😉
Hey, I’m Jewish…we win the award for the most stubborn people here! Haha just kidding, well not really. We’re pretty darn stubborn ourselves.
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Ha ha ha… Yeah, you Jewish really are stubborn, aren’t you… But God used that for good too, because now other savage stubborn warriors such as yours truly viking got a chance with Jesus – so from the bottom of my heart; I do thank you Jews! ❤
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Hahaha! you had me cracking up when I read this. Such a shame the Vikings and the Jews never had the chance to ally together against their foes! We’ll never get to see the trans-Euro-Middle eastern empire run by Jewish-Danish overlords, which today would influence modern day society in kosher wienerbrød as the breakfast of choice in the Mediterranean region.
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Oh goodness Joel… I’m the one cracking up now!! Hilarious. Kosher Wienerbrød… Simply irresistible breakfast! I’m impressed you even got the Ø in there!
Right now I’m wishing I lived just a tad bit closer to Oklahoma – HA, such enjoyable dinner parties we could have.
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Haha! Agreed that would be fun. 🙂 I’ll be honest here Lene, I literally Google “Danish breakfast” with plans to copy and paste thr first native danish looking food and copy and paste it with the word kosher in front of it…what the heck is a wienerbrod anyway lol?! Is it good?!
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wienerbrod is what you know as “danish bread or pastry”. It’s literally “Vienna bread”. Bread in Danish is brød. Wien is Vienna, in Austria where the Danish bread originated 😉
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Lol silly American that I am…I just Googled this and I’ve eaten these things a million times. We call them “Danish” and they are super yunny!! Especially cheese danish or cherry danish with coffee. Mmmm!!
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Oh my oh my… Danish really got messed up when it went overseas! What in the world is “Cheese danish” and “Cherry danish”???
In Denmark it’s either with jam, chocolate or marcipan…
Danish pastry is with whip cream and delicious but extreme in calories – really extreme! 20 min jumprope will get you nowhere if you eat a pastry 😉 But they are SO delicious.
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Lol you don’t know what a cheese danish is?? And you’re danish?? I’m kidding! Haha! No, here in America we just do it right 😉 we make it with cream cheese. That’s how we like our danish! 😉
Marcipan? Huh, I bet that’s good! Jam and chocolate work well too! Whip cream goes with everything bte! Hey are you making fun of my exercise routines? 20 min jump rope everyday works pretty well!
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LOL – so in other words – it’s no longer a danish, it’s an “americanish”. Oh my, you crack me up!
Would never make fun of a jump rope, you or any kind of exercise routine! Just saying that if you eat a pastry… Personally I can’t eat a pastry – I look at the bakery shop window and have gained 2 kilos at least!
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I can’t eat them either. Have you ever had a doughnut before?
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I have had doughnuts here in Japan. They are not popular in Denmark, but Japan loves them. I can’t say I particularly enjoy them though 🙂 – Occasionally the “Mister Donut” shops has some seasonal doughnuts which are oftentimes very delicious.
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This link shows a picture of the baptism, drawn from a kobber-print made around 1200. The baptism took place around 960’s… http://www.verasir.dk/images/Daab%20harald%20tamdrup%20kirke.jpg
Look up “Harald bluetooth” for more info if you like 😉
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I can relate. 🙂
I have a hymn for you that I like to sing…
“My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but holy lean on Jesus name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand….all other ground is sinking sand. ”
I want more of him too! And he does give us more of himself in his time.
Keep leaning on him!
Blessings….
PS Are you writing a novel?? About the end times? 😉
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I love that! That’s too kind of you and I really need those words. The only foundation I want to be built on is Jesus, the cross, and his resurrection. I don’t need or want anything else past that as my Rock. Because everything else, just like the hymn, sinks. It’s quicksand! I love that hymn, thank you 🙂
Haha no, not yet 😉 but it might be kinda fun to try! I have such little time right now, but who knows…maybe! I want to do another short story like that though. It was fun to write! I used to write fiction all the time.
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Wow, amazing post!! I think it is important that we all have transparency in life. It reminds us that we are not alone and that we need each other for support. All of us are fallen and need Jesus, times of trouble remind us of that. 🙂 Praying for you and your family!!
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Thanks Kristin!!! Yes agreed. And it is really important that we don’t feel alone, especially in our walks with Christ, we do need each other in the family of God. It’s how Jesus created us to be, it’s a good thing. And yes, you are very right, times of trouble definitely remind us of how badly we need him. I want to be the kind of person who runs to Jesus always, especially when things are good. And to be rejoicing with him in all things!
Btw, things are so much better since I wrote this! Hope you are having a wonderful morning!! 🙂 blessings!
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