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Be the Dot. God is Drawing in His Plan, 01MAY

My friend got a kick out of the hoopla of a secret video of his basketball game with a “random” stranger that went viral,  200,000 views to date, TV news, in just 3 days,  but he takes it all in stride… Understandibly the man who took the video is so excited about it going viral!! His kids are excited too!! They saw the coolness of the moment and became the conduit of connectedness….  Another friend (a social media savvy friend) saw the newsfeed, tagged me on Facebook when she saw the story and I connected the video taker with my friend … not by social media but physical stopping by to find him at the pizza place on Sunday. He laughed – he said “look at that big dot of white hair” remarking at himself in the video… As he was just being normal friendly gentleman he is, the news here is the world is all looking for connecting to friendliness… it’s a feel good story… God knows we like feel good stories that tug our heartstring…

It’s bigger than the bouncing dot of white hair or the bouncing of a basketball, it’s a warm fuzzy feeling of having HOPE  in mankind… it’s a direction for connection that God wants us to be thinking about… how can we be conduits of LOVING OUR NEIGHBORS? How can we connect? How will God use this “randomness” in His “connect the dots” plan? How can we BE THE DOTS?

God surely has a plan which is connecting us to Him, that plan is much bigger than we could ever see or imagine… there were endless examples for me this week: a new drummer of an old band posted on facebook about his critics hounding him, and the flood of fan encouragement poured in… they were connecting dots of encouragement,  that’s what God’s SPIRIT can do… and we can be one of those encouraging dots…

Another few faith conversations with friends, time to encourage… we can be one of those encouraging dots… we of course can also be one of those loving our neighbor dots too!

So importantly, last night I was half awake on the couch and a text message comes through about one of our Vacation Bible School and girl scout families whose 4yr old daughter needs a liver transplant… So in the course of half an hour, not moving from the couch, I, my girl scout leader and others were able to connect with hundreds maybe thousands of people for prayers… click click click…. dot dot dot… including the person and social media outlet thru the basketball game… dot… dot… dot….

Do you see the dots that God is laying down? Then can you see God drawing lines in between those dots? Can you hear the spirit moving? Can you feel His flow of actions and prayers passing thru us to help others? Oh that’s how God works…. we reach, we touch the robe of God fringe and His love transfers…

I don’t know if any of these connections will come up with a liver donation but what I do know is that being in prayer is the most important thing we can be in. And I thank you for your prayers.

Prayer is flow between the dots. Prayer is the SPIRIT travelling from your dot thru other dots and back and all around the net of life… God not only hears those prayers, HE MADE THOSE PRAYERS, God makes the SPIRIT flow from Him to within us and back to Him…

You and I are dots that God wants to connect…

I am not a solo lone or special dot, but all of us are HIS dots, made in ink, not just pencil…. God’s dots are all His own…. You are His!

Sometimes maybe it seems like my broken dot spills and splatters when the Spirit floods and flows… I reach for help and prayers whether I am strong or weak… and I open my big mouth to say “wow”, and maybe that’s the point,  we all have to share however we share because God wants to use us as we are…. it’s ok even to be feeling lost and faded away, because God knows where He placed all His dots, and will find you (psalm 139 hunt us down) when it is time to reconnect all His dots…

Weak or strong, faded or bold, ripped or rippling, convoluted or simple,  we dots are to be connected. God will re-light you and delight in you.

We do need to pray to be better dots too… we perhaps could strive to strongly hold the harp string of the harmonic sound wave that God wants to pluck and hear… and perhaps we can strive to create a trampoline bounce dot, so that new strings of praise can be bounced from our dot to new dot spots unknown… and we can let our heartstrings be pulled too…

We can be His hands, feet, and dots… to do His work in His world.

BE THE DOTS, LOVE THE DOTS, look for the connecting stroke of God’s pen.

BE STILL to stop spinning and let God connect to you and thru you…

God’s timing, God’s puzzle, God’s plan

You are a chosen dot…

“But you are a chosen dot, a royal dot, a holy nation of dots, God’s special dot, that you may strung together, lines drawn between, and you can bounce the praises of Him back to Him, who bounced you out of darkness and into His wonderful Light.” 1peter 2:9 adapted

BE THE DOTS…

Amen

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Five MORE Minutes, 30APR

A follow up to the previous devotion… thx for prayers

https://debbieupper.wordpress.com/2018/05/14/5-years-5-minutes-27apr-552/

Oops…. car accident prevented by God…

Five more everything gifted by God saving me from the accident I almost caused… no accident whew… THANKS LORD!

I try to be good but I did allow some divisiveness sneak into my world and I allowed it to make me lose focus…

I got distracted…. without giving details, I’ll just say I saw an evil divisiveness invade a situation not involving me it did… and even though it was diffused (praying Jesus words: “Satan get behind me “), it still it had a ripple effect, and I was distracted rethinking about it while driving… evil sneaks in, therefore we are to be vigilant… I need to send a praise to God to let me see it clearly now… God unmasks the situations… I got His save…

I know we should not be surprised by divisive situations because they will present themselves again and again… they still surprise me because I am human… So we prepare and do the best we can and not let the evil in the world steal our focus or our JOY…. the truth is that JOY…

Therefore my needed self-control is to not let the distractions keep me from obeying the TRUTH – that is a gift from the SPIRIT !! A fruit from the spirit… I am blessed to “keep running the race!” Scripture from Paul says: “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through LOVE.

“7 You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? 8 That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you…

“22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control.” Galatians 5

Thanks Lord for the save…

Five MORE minutes…

Thanks Lord for fruits of the SPIRIT…

Thanks Lord for the TRUTH!

Thanks Lord for helping me continue the race!

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5 years, 5 minutes, 27Apr

My favorite Bowie song – “5 years” – David screams it – I do too…

He sings about only five years left for the Earth… how urgent!… “oh my brain hurts a lot”, he screams!

“We’ve got five years, what a surprise
We’ve got five years, my brain hurts a lot
We’ve got five years, that’s all we’ve got”

I do think about life and death, especially with my long commute, I think about the time we have here, on this Earth… and I think about what Heaven is like…

I wonder looking at the clouds when things will end. I should…

I wonder how “to cram so many things” into such a short time… I should…

I wonder how to rest enough… I should…

I should keep moving. I should keep moving… I should…

What would you do with only 5 years left in life? 5 years? 5 months? 5 days? 5 minutes?

Would we start by thanking the Lord?

WOULD we say: “I LOVE YOU LORD!” constantly?

5 years, 5 minutes? Would I ask for the Lord’s mercy? I should…

5 years? Oh what could I accomplish in 5 years? How many lives could I help? How many times could I tell my kids, my parents that I love them? Tell them constantly? I should…

5 months? Would I take time for myself alone? or would I fill it with every person I could visit as fast as I could? How many hugs could I gather and give in that time? Should I SMILE? I should…

5 days?  Would I go back to finish the unfinished?

Finish that sewing pile? No!

How about finishing that stolen kiss? Maybe!

Would I “Finish the race? Yes! I would finish the race… I should…

5 anything? Would I even tell the people I would be gone? Would I want to burden them? Or inspire them? I should INSPIRE… I should…

5 minutes? How many times would I call out to the Lord? How many times could I question Him? How many times could I thank Him? How many times would I cry: “Why?” How many minutes would it take me to STOP my questioning? How many minutes would it take me to start listening? I should…

How long before the ONLY thing I say is:

“I love You, Lord”

I should…

I would…

I will…

How long before I LISTEN for the Lord?

5 years, 5 minutes?

Focus on loving the Lord?

Focus on loving everything He does and made?

I should…

I love to question “WHY?” – I do…

I love that the ONLY answer He ever gives me is:

“Because I LOVE you!”

I should use every moment to BELIEVE that…

“Because I LOVE you!”

For every moment we live is in His Love, of His Love, and with His Love.

Because of Him we LIVE to LOVE

We should…

Amen

551

I had to mirror my previous writing about the stars – from when I was on a blessing of a retreat 6 months prior –https://debbieupper.wordpress.com/2017/11/03/the-stars-27oct-496/

I HAD to write again – close to the same situation – same camp setting – same road – same nighttime climb of the hill – but different because I was not attending this retreat (and I snuck out early to get home to the kids) there was no one to talk to! – once again the ONLY praise and explosion of my thoughts could be shared with the one and only who deserves the praises – the Lord…

I felt like I was taking a mini retreat while dropping off someone to this retreat…  and this WAS different because instead of the Fall, it was SPRINGtime – yes there were different stars and oh the new sounds that sprung into my ears from the rare sound of the Peepers – “and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.” Sing to the Lord a new song, His praise from the ends of the earth… (Isaiah 42)

“There are Peepers, Lord!!!!”, 26APR

I am screaming in my head while walking up the EXACT same hill where just months prior I had screamed in my head: “The stars, Lord!” – To whom can I call out? Again with no one to talk to – I can only call out to YOU, Lord! Only and appropriately only have praise for YOU – “to whom all is due”

I can hear those PEEPERS, Lord! WOW!

I can see those stars!

There are people too, Lord! I can feel them calling out Your praises tonight, even if I can’t see them.

I know they are praising – after I leave camp I will not hear them, but You can hear them, and that makes me happy.

There are REALLY LOUD peepers, Lord. I am floored at how blessed I am at this very moment – to relive an awestruck moment – to hear Your creation so loud… but Lord, why are peepers SO LOUD??? Do they need to hear each other? or perhaps do we need to hear them loud and clear so that we know that they are from You – praising back to You?

Why are the stars SO bright, Lord? Do the stars need to shine to each other? or perhaps do we need to see them so bright so that we know they are a sign from You?

Why is the moon SO mesmerizing, Lord? Does the moon need to startle the world? or perhaps do we need to just say ‘I do not know how God does all these amazing things!’

There’s our world, Lord! Why is our world so diverse, Lord? Is the earth for us or is it for You, Lord? – dust to dust with YOU… Can we remember to look for You in our mesmerization?

Do we need to understand the world to love it? or perhaps do we just need to know that You love it? Can we take care of Your beautiful Earth, Lord? Can you help us? Can we take a moment to care? to stare? to see? to listen? Will Your future children ever get to hear praises out of the voices of peepers? I don’t know – but I pray that they will…

Do we need to understand the people in the world to love them? Or perhaps do we just need to know that You love them and we should too? Will Your future children ever get to hear praises out of the voices of people?  Will Your future children get to feel Your love? I know that answer – they WILL feel your LOVE – but of course I pray that they will know it is from You…

Can we truly ever know how much You love us?

Can I simply walk up this hill and know You are with me always? To the ends of the earth? I can Lord – I can!

Can we keep walking with you Lord? We can Lord – we can!

Can we understand that You most simply and most intricately want to show us that You love us! We can Lord – we can!

Can I hear praising peepers again?

Actually I still do hear those PRAISING PEEPERS – Your Spirit placed them in my head – and LORD, THEY ARE LOUD!

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I reached for my phone when this firecracker of a spirit thought connected in my head last night, but I was in a church service and I had to wait to write… but WOW, please tell me someone had already had this spirited thought, I don’t read much so I think God just has to repopulate these notions again and again in us… my view of the cross changed forever in that moment yesterday… I hold onto the cross not JUST for life after death but for OPEN ARMS – TODAY…

Open Arms, 23APR

The Cross, Jesus’s Cross, is a great physical shape to hold onto in our hands, and the spiritual Cross is essential to hold onto in our faith. The Cross crossed Jesus over, life-death-life.

The shape of the cross, the image, the message, is not JUST of a reminder of the physical torture of Jesus’s tired abused body. But THINK about that shape, Jesus died with OPEN ARMS!!!! Arms that were forced humanly open by nails on wood, but actively mentally held OPEN by Him. When Jesus was at HIS last earthly moments He still kept His open arms OPEN!

Jesus has opened His arms to hold us, His arms to rescue us, His arms to lift us…. look at that shape and remember that His arms on the cross, and forever more, are OPEN ARMS to welcome us HOME…

If we focus on the shape of the cross, we should already feel home… “for today you will be with ME  in paradise”… Feel the love preparing our way thru His way. Christ connects life-death-life by His crossing over for our salvation. He welcomes us today. I invite you to feel how Christ is ready to peel His arms off that cross and lift you today, lift from under your rib cage and hold you TODAY – just as He would hold you FOREVER.

Jesus has OPEN ARMS to hold, hug, lift, LOVE.

We can live again by first living in Jesus’s arms – TODAY…

Hold onto His OPEN ARMS and squeeze Him too. Lift Him up and He will Lift you!

Lift

LOVE

Live

LIVE!!!

AMEN!

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CAPABLE, 15APR

We are human, we are limited, God is INFINITE

God is God

God knits into us His GIFT of strength and His empowering lift of SPIRIT

God makes us CAPABLE…

WOW that is EXHAUSTING!!!

God wants to use us!

CAPABLE

I am stubborn,  short-sighted, cranky

I am simple

I am bold

I am rushed

I am lost

I am blind

I am SO very human, but God is SO very God

CAPABLE

God is CAPABLE of using my humanness for His purposes

Eye-opening for sure

CAPABLE

I am silly

I am flighty

I am a child

I am me

I am so very me, to a flaw, but God is so very God

CAPABLE

God is capable of using my flaws for His purposes

Maturing me

CAPABLE

I am so very shallow, but God is so very God

I look deep inside and know where I stop and God goes deeper, MUCH DEEPER

The infinite vast expansion of the universe is mirrored only in the infinite vast depth inside one’s own soul…

My words, my LOVE, my spirit are NOT from me

My God is infinitely more deep than the depth of me

My God is vaster than the widest expansions of the universe

My God is CAPABLE

My God connects all that is His

CAPABLE

My SPIRIT is His, lent to my mortal body for a flash of the most faint mark of His infinite time

My God gives me His SPIRIT anyway,  for His purpose

My SPIRIT is CAPABLE to reconnect to Him

My SPIRIT is CAPABLE to flow to His SPIRIT in others

My mission is to NOT hinder the flow… HIS FLOW

My mission is to LIVE

My mission is to LOVE

My God is LOVE

LOVE is CAPABLE

God, You are my God

You are CAPABLE

I am me, but

You are God

I LOVE You Lord

I wish to return the LOVE to You thru using Your LOVE

Thank you for making me CAPABLE to LOVE

Thank You for making me Yours

Amen

 

 

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Suffering for Christ, Not Ourselves, 14APR

Suffering…. Jesus says we will have struggles, suffering, and strife in life…

We need to choose, however, what is real suffering and what is caused by our focus on worldly things…

Scripture tells us to not worry about what we will eat or drink,  or overindulge in drinking and things that cloud our understanding of reality… what we worry about breeches our understanding of real suffering… our perception of suffering is what becomes an escapism drive… our placation of life to make everything alright for ourselves becomes our drug of choice. We all do this. We are human. Jesus is trying to open our eyes to let us shed our human ways and return to being the forces of LOVE in the world.

Choose suffering over stuff… Choose wisely what to suffer about… Choose to suffer for Christ and NOT for ourselves…

We often don’t understand or choose to negate our distractive ways which make us avoid the real problems in the world…. we are clouded… we continue to be a sinful generation… we forget to work on loving…

Choose LOVE over being lost….

As disciples, we could and should see that Jesus was and is suffering not simply thru physical pain (even though that was tremendous) but thru emotional aching to re-vine a garden of God’s children who are distracted, fighting, squabbling and lost. Can you see the burning branches (John 15) of fruitless human endeavors which make it hard for Jesus and us as disciples to rise a garden back out of the ashes when fires are still actively burning?… We know that we are supposed to shed our concerns but we keep getting distracted… we (you and me) are walking disciples… much of the world hasn’t even started walking yet… ignorance… much of the world can’t even get to disbelief then eventual belief if their ignorance still reigns… seeds not yet planted can not sprout.

Jesus walked continuously with the disciples and yet they were also so very clouded in their belief – but at least they kept walking with Jesus and asking questions… they witnessed miracle after miracle and still had continued disbelief – they even saw repetitions of miracles – loaf after loaf of bread – and yet could not convey the true meaning of their journey back to Christ when He asked them what was going to happen to the Son of Man… they barely grasped that Jesus was actually God’s chosen one… Imagine knowing what we faithfully believe now, that they could have unbelief? Imagine if we saw Jesus transfigured and talking with Moses and Elijah – if we saw Jesus not as a human but in His Godly radiance – would we hesitate for a moment to BELIEVE everything, no questions asked?… Would we?? Peter, John and James saw this REALLY happen and yet the continued discussing and questioning EVEN MORE after the fact than before…. “What does this all mean?” “Does Elijah come first?” “What does it mean to rise from the dead?” (See Mark 9)… Jesus keeps working His plan, but even Jesus was surprised at their disbelief… Jesus may have wished to transfigured them and each of us for a brief moment to show the SPIRIT-filled soul under our heavy humaness…

Jesus wondered and wonders now when His then and current disciples will shed their disbelief? When will they have the knowledge and willingness to move thru the world as God’s hands and feet? And the willingness to teach that Jesus REALLY was real? When?  The disciples were able to perform miracles, as needed – not to be used as sideshows –  but miracles as mercy moments to help the masses…

Similarly, when will we, you and I and the masses, believe that we can do the work that Jesus called us to do – when will can we ALSO provide mercy moments to the masses?  When will we, like they, accept Jesus’s GIFT of the Holy Spirit to guide us. And when will we BELIEVE in His power?

Back to the same question – when will we choose to suffer FOR Christ and NOT for ourselves?… to do this we need to choose to keep walking past our own distractions… to put ourselves last in order to help… to put LOVE first and hate last… to BELIEVE that LOVE will win… We must choose to play to win – for God!

Jesus’s first challenge to us is to BELIEVE. And to LOVE.

“I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” Mark 9

Jesus’s challenge to us is to accept the Holy Spirit to guide us.

Jesus’s challenge to us is to keep walking…

Jesus’s challenge to us is to testify about His LOVE,  to plant seeds of faith…. For seeds not yet planted can not sprout, but sprouting seeds give HOPE.

Jesus’s GIFT to us is HOPE

Jesus’s GIFT to us is HIS SPIRIT

Jesus’s GIFT to us is our forgiveness

Jesus’s GIFT to us is our lives

Jesus, “I do BELIEVE, help me overcome my disbelief”

Jesus, “I will keep walking… please light my way… God knows the plan, please help me hear and follow the SPIRIT…”

Jesus, “Please fill my soul with Your SPIRIT…”

Amen

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Mark 8

34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?

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John 15

If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. 24 If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. 25 But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’

26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. 27 And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.”