Listening

This has been a problem for me in the past during my times of prayer. I tend to have a mouth full of worries/problems to voice and spend little time listening. I realize He can talk to me throughout the day, but am I really taking the time to stop, meditate on the thought, allow it to speak to me and perhaps change me? It's the still small voice that reminds me that He is with me and is working. Sometimes, I forget what I pray and later on when the prayer is answered I miss out on God's blessings because of business. But not today! When I sat down to eat my bowl of soup for lunch, God reminded me of a time that I prayed and asked Him to teach me about "salt." Yes, salt that you eat and how I can be like salt. See, I have had a cold for the last few days and nothing really tastes that great. My soup needed something to make it tastes better. It needed SALT!! My saltine crackers did the trick and made it delicious! Before, my soup was tasteless and void of flavor, but then I added salt and it changed the taste and made it better. God wants me to be like salt.... add flavor wherever I go, make it better by gracing it with saltiness (Him). Also, He does not want my taste buds to grow numb for Him, but He wants me to keep an expectation in my spirit and a hunger for Him to quench. Yes, the salt quenched my taste buds, but God quenched that deep well inside my heart. I love how God reminded me of my prayers and how He showed me the answer. This fast has been so rewarding.

"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses it's saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled on by men."
Matthew 5:13

So why am I surprised when I ask God to refine me or reveal the sin in my life.... and..... He does. When I see my sin manifest itself, it is just plain ugly and I have to get rid of it. What happens after He reveals it matters the most..... I must ask for forgiveness, repent, go to battle, take up my authority in Christ, receive God's grace and mercy..... then turn from the sin.
The power of the cross..... it is beautiful. My sin, for Jesus' holiness. My ashes, for His beauty. My mourning, for His gladness. My pain, for His love.

This is really starting to make sense. He has given me victory! Things I have struggled with time and time again are manifesting, but this time instead of letting them be and fighting the battle alone.... I am repenting, claiming victory over the sin and changing the patterns. God is breaking the strongholds.... He is transforming my life because I am making myself available to Him. May this become a habit and I choose Him first. Who knows what He will do!!!

Fasting

We just started a 21 day church/city wide fast on Monday. Greg and Carlee are fasting from sweets and I choose to fast all meals on Tuesday's and try to eat healthier (more veggies, less carbs.) during the week. We all have our list of things we are fasting for.... #1 being self-control (not just in what we choose to eat, but in actions and attitudes)
Carlee did such a great job yesterday, when Zachary asked me for a piece of candy after lunch. She did not ask for one, she just told me that she remembered she was fasting. This girl amazes and me! She is getting the idea. I was not expecting Carlee to join us in the fast, but I asked her if she wanted to participate. She said, "What's a fast?" "Why would people not eat food?" I explained with a glass of ice water (this illustration was demonstrated to me recently). I told Carlee to pretend that the ice represented all the junk (sin) in her life and the water represented God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus. When you take the ice out (or the sin), you have more room for water (or God). So when we choose to not eat certain foods and we hear our tummy grumbling or we our tempted to eat something sweet, we ask God to replace the grumbling or the temptation with more of Him and fill us with His love and His Spirit. It's when we are weak that He is made strong. So we fast to make ourselves weak and more dependent on God. We want everything in us to be Jesus flowing out..... so if that glass of water gets shaken, then all that's spilled is Him.
This fast is developing a new mind set. God is showing me how some of the things I do, even good things (like pray, worship, exercise, etc.) are not necessarily pure and right. One of my life verses is, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God," (Matthew 5:8). God is refining my life, taking out the old thinking, changing it with His truth. He's bringing me to my knees and having me repent from things that are wrong. He is having me go to battle over those sins and walk in victory. I feel like I can barely say a thing or move an inch without Him showing me something that needs to change. It's a good place, yet a hard place to be. Right now it is an uphill climb.... but it is all worth it!!! Thankfully, I know the end of the story.