I am Guest Posting Today at Baking Beauty!

I am guest posting today over at Baking Beauty.  Krystle was nice enough to let me do this, so please check out the link here.  And while you are there, check out the site because there are some great giveaways over there!

Do You Ever Wonder Why?

I have been struggling for several days about what exactly I should share, but I think God would like me to at least share some of my current struggles with you, my wonderful readers.  After all, I cannot make much sense about what is going on with my family and me right now--I will admit it.  And maybe some of you have gone through similar struggles.

You might remember that I recently shared how God is restoring my friendship with Martin, my English friend. And that is completely true.  God is continuing to restore it to even better than it was previously.  We have covered so many topics between us, and I feel I understand him more than I ever did.  He even suggested something for my blog--a couple things that I will hopefully get a chance to share with you soon.

What I did not share concerns my family.  I probably hinted at it, but I did not really talk about it.  I wasn't sure how I wanted to handle this, but I think God has given me direction tonight.  In many ways, my family is going through a tough time.  Some things happened last week that have caused emotional damage, and I am kind of caught in the middle.  It is not a fun place to be.  On one hand, I am doing my best to remain objective and see both sides of the issue.  But on the other hand, my continued spending time with both Martin and my family members who are at odds can lead to discord on both sides.

Communication is something at which I can excel, but I can also put my foot in my mouth a whole lot.  I do much better with the written word than the spoken word.  I also have a problem of revealing too much or misspeaking.  When you add in emotions, it can be a very dangerous place to be.  I find myself apologizing and explaining myself quite regularly.  I try to go over in my mind (with God's help) what I should share and when I should just be silent.  I sometimes don't even know what to think.  I feel pushed and pulled on both sides.  It makes me appear moody when I really am not.  And it makes me second guess what I think and believe about the situation.

Am I the only one who has ever been in this position?  I am sure the answer is no.  And I am sure that everyone who has ever been in this position asks the same question--Why am I the one chosen to be in this position.  Why do I have to be the go-between or sometimes the peace-maker?  Why has God given me this job when I know I am not operating in my strength?

Ah, I think I may just have hit the nail on the head with that response. More often than not, God asks us to step outside our comfort zones so that He may be shown through us.  I have to say that I feel I am making a mess of the situation.  I am sure that what I have said on both sides is being misconstrued.  And it is really tough when both sides are not willing to listen.  Or when minds are made up.  Or when "lenses" are colored.

When you add in my father's mental health and health issues, it adds even more into this mix.  In fact, as I was writing this, my dad came out and did his usual thing of trying to belittle me and treat me like a child.  My mom and I bear the brunt of my dad's anger.  And I am always the easy target.

I have to admit that over this past week of difficulty, I have really struggled with understanding how and why this is happening to us. And specifically--me.  Over and over again, God has reminded me that He is in control, and I need to be patient.  And I have remembered the dream I had several years ago.  While I do not know everything that the enemy wants to do, I know that he wants the family destroyed, and he does not want Martin to be saved.  He wants me to give in to sexual temptation, and he wants a physical fight to ensue between Martin and my dad.

So the question remains.  Why am I in this position?  Well, it is just quite possible (as with Queen Esther) that God has brought me to this place for such a time as this.  As I think about it, Esther was put in a very difficult position.  She was a Jew who had become queen in a pagan society.  The life of her people rested in her hands.  While it is true that she may never have been in true danger due to her position, that was not the point.  She fasted and prayed (according to Josephus--the Bible doesn't tell us that she prayed, but I tend to agree that she would not have fasted without praying), and she knew what she had to do.  She risked her life to save her people, and in many ways, the story of Esther almost ends like a fairy tale.  And it is true.

So when you, dear reader, wonder why you have been placed in this position, don't ask why and bemoan all of your trouble.  Realize that God has you where you are for a task that He wants you to perform.  Perhaps you do not feel equipped to do it. And it is when we are weak that God shows Himself to be strong.  While we are free to tell God "no," as Esther's relative, Mordecai, told her--if you don't do it, God will bring along someone else to accomplish His will.  That should be a sobering thought.  Perhaps you have to go through a lot of garbage, but if you can just get through it, God will work it for good.  And if you're like me, you certainly don't want to miss the opportunity to have God do a mighty work through you.

Don't worry, my friends.  I have not arrived as of yet.  But I feel as though my faith is being strengthened as I write this.   I am so glad that I turned to my blog--God spoke through me.  I can only hope and pray that it was encouragement to you, too!

Twilight Tuesday--God is Good

I thought I would share tonight something that was (and sometimes is) a twilight moment for me in recent times.  And God used a wonderful book that I read recently--Redeeming Love.  I shared a little in my review, but I will share more here.

Those of you who have been following me know that my best friend, Martin, is here 6 months out of the year.  He is not saved, but I am trusting God that he will be.  And I am in love with him and joyfully anticipate the moment when he is saved and we can be married.  Our relationship is very complicated because we are best friend, soul mates, and yet he insists that is all we are.  Except that there is a definite chemistry and spark between us that everyone who has ever met us sees almost instantly.  We do have a bit of a physical relationship,  but it is kept within certain realms.  And he dismisses  it as nothing emotional.  I just follow God and make sure I don't let things go too far.

Things were fantastic when he came back this time--he treated me like a princess.  Then things were becoming rather regular between us.  But things got busy.  And Martin and my dad don't get along.  So Martin was often physically sore from clearing property and very mad at my dad.  So I normally kept silent and did not try for anything physical between us.

That was killing me!  All I could do was think about the physical.  I craved it to the point that it almost began to consume me.  And I  began to cry out to God.  My emotions and hormones  went wild.

It was just  about this time that I began to read Redeeming Love.  I immediately identified with Michael Hosea.  I understood his pain.  And when Angel left one time,  he cried  out to God.  God told him that Angel had made sex a god.  That kind of  stopped me in my tracks.  Wow. In a sense, that is what I had done.  I had gotten so into  the  physical that I had forgotten to pray for Martin's salvation.  I wasn't working on any other parts of our friendship.  It wasn't out of control, but it was headed that direction.

So I made a commitment at that point to let the physical go.  I don't spend every night hoping it will happen.  I am content to wait.  And I have.  Tonight, things turned somewhat physical--quite surprising under the circumstances--and I did not go crazy.  In fact, God had given me such insight  into things that I knew why Martin had not craved the physical.  He was too tired, and now he is sick.  I used to worry that I was not attractive enough and that Martin was losing interest.  God is opening my eyes to so many things about Martin because I have resolved to make God first and Martin's salvation the primary thing in my prayers.

Indeed, what has been a twilight time is now an early morning sunrise.  In time, I believe the sun will be shining down!

Solution Sunday--It is About Our Identity, Not Our Behavior (and an organizational fix)

Well, church was really good again today.  Really, it was Sunday School.  And God used my mom to reveal a truth I had not really thought about.

If we are truly Christians, should we really refer to ourselves as "sinners saved by grace"?  I bet we could really have a debate about this.  Are we saints?  Oh, no, we are not Catholics.  We don't use the term "saint" in our church.  And after all, you might be thinking, of course we are sinners.  And of course, we were saved by grace. After all, Adam sinned, and we have a sin nature.  We can't help it.

I am sorry, my dear readers, but I hate to disagree with you.  According to Scripture, before we are saved, we have no choice but to sin.  Just read the book of Romans.   As the book goes on, the question is asked should we continue to sin after we are saved?  Some might say that we should.  The more we sin, the more grace we receive as Christians.  Sorry, but when we become Christians, we no longer have to sin.  We make the choice to sin.  I remember in college when I was taking the book of Romans (I went to Bible college) how this changed my thinking.  As Christians, we make the conscious decision to sin.  We are free from sin.  We have been given a brand new spirit.  And the real struggle is that our spirit wants to follow God, but our bodies and souls sometimes do not allow the spirit to dominate us.

When we refer to ourselves as "sinners saved by grace," I believe that we give ourselves the freedom to sin.  We have an excuse.  When we mess up, we can say, "Well, I'm just a sinner anyway.  I can't help it."  That is flawed thinking.  Once we are saved, we become saints.  God gives us a brand new spirit.  We make the choice to sin.  But we don't have to.

So what is it that saves us?  Is is God or what we do for Him or both?  I think I would have said that my behavior absolutely must match what I say I am and it if doesn't, I have to do better.  It is up to me to work hard and fight against sin.  I must resist.  I must do this.  I must do that.  How wrong we are!!  It is all about God, not us.  He does the work in us.  It is His new spirit within us that we need to let do the work.  It is not about us--it's about Him.

Now I am not saying that we are totally absolved of responsibility.  But I also know that I have spent too much time trying to do the right thing.  I will give you the perfect example.  I've mentioned certain things concerning my relationship with Martin before--my friend in England.  He is not saved at this point, and I am very much in love with him. He is drawn to me, but he refuses to say he is in love with me.  There is a certain electricity between us that causes us to sometimes be tempted to do certain things.  It's hard for me because I am a Christian, and I have to draw the line.  I have to stop and make it very clear that this is the boundary line.  I prided myself on being able to stop.  I could do it because God was there with me, and I would not do it.  And so far, I had prided myself on being able to stop.  But I still felt that I wasn't pleasing God and doing what I should do.

In church today, God pointed out to me that it was not up to me to stop myself.  I needed to let the new spirit within me control my flesh and my soul.  My flesh cries out for Martin.  I want him.  But if I can let God control me, I will be able to resist temptation.  I have been worried for a while that I wouldn't be able to resist.  I had seen blogging as my escape hatch.  I was going to blog and blog and blog so that I could ignore Martin and make sure that nothing happens between us.  There I go again--I was trying to do it on my own.  I CAN'T!  So I have given it over to God.  And I know that if allow God's Spirit within me to control me, I will not fall into temptation.

My mom said something very profound,  She said that we need to stop responding to our fellow believers based on their behavior--we should base it on their identity.  We often don't embrace who  we are in the Lord.  We are not sinners saved by grace,  and all of us Christians would live a lot differently if we could change our thinking.  Because God is holy, we are holy.  Before the Lord, we are without blame because when God looks at us, He sees Christ.  I know it's an unusual thought, but trust me, it is a freeing thought.  I am still grasping it--truth be known.

Quick solution I am committed to this week is the following:
I will spend 10 minutes each day this week (at least) doing something around the house.  I will put the computer down at that time, and just do it.  I did a lot of work  today, and I feel really good about it.  I will keep you up to date on how I do this.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings tonight.  I surely hope I made sense!  Or I should say, I hope that God spoke through me to your heart.  At least you have something to think about.  And please do ponder it.