Maggie Moments - "Prime Pup"

If God can speak through a donkey, why not an adorable lab named Maggie?  Join us for our occasional "Maggie Moments" as Maggie's Mama Jeanne shares silly laughs and sweet insights from the life of her puppy.  Learning to see God in our everyday moments....     

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7

Running as usual with Maggie this morning, greeting all who we pass by with a hearty “hello”, we came upon a man out in his front yard who replied to our greeting, “Beautiful dog! I’ve got one just like her”, and then he added, “only she’s 13.” I replied that Maggie was only two, in her prime, but that indeed, labs are the best dogs!

I was immediately convicted as I ran on of the prejudice revealed in my own thinking, believing on some level I know, that Maggie was more “prime” than this man’s unknown and older labrador. Contrary to popular world opinion and often my own distorted perceptions, “prime” is not an age or an outward appearance, rather it is an attitude or condition of the heart that is revelatory about the worth we give something or someone. 

Prime is typically attached to things we consider important, central, excellent - and basically, better. We have a kind of ranking system in our own minds, where we place value based on what suits us and meets our felt needs, making us happy, comfortable, in control and covered.  In this way, we gain our worth, validating ourselves in our own eyes. The problem is that precisely because it is in our own eyes, it is a false system of value or worth. 

The only true validation of what is “prime” comes from the Word of God, His truth revealed in His promises, provision and protection, and in the person of Jesus Christ! As sinners, we are bent on looking at all the wrong things, assigning improper value, calling “prime” what is not really prime. We desperately need truth speaking to us, making the cosmic shift in our twisted attitudes, opinions, perceptions, and ideas, giving us the mind of Christ that we might then have the heart of Christ. 

The Lord is not fooled. He was not fooled by the prejudice that tried to rise up in my thinking this morning. He sees all, hears all, and knows all. Nothing is hidden from His view. It is the Lord who defines “prime”. And it is His view of the inward, not the outward that truly matters. As regards our dogs, the definition of “prime” was simply the value that man and I each gave our respective pups as their rightful owners. Both our answers? Beautiful! Beloved! Best! As it is with God, who alone can assign value to our being as humans, created in His image. 

Nothing we do on the outside to make ourselves be or look better, younger, smarter, quicker, funnier, more successful, less troubled, or whatever it is, is sufficient. 

Our sufficiency, our “prime” status, can come only from our rightful owner, Jesus Christ! 

It is by His blood, shed on the cross, that we are covered, and called, and proven to be “prime”! There is no other way, no other worthy, no other “prime”. We must receive by His loving truth and life, what only He can give, a heart that is for Him and seeks to please and worship Him as Lord, for His names sake alone.

How concerned are we with outward appearances? Is the outward appearance, both ours and others, central to our thinking, “prime”? Or are we more concerned with inward appearances, with what the Lord sees when He looks at us? I pray that we let the Word of God set our concerns straight! We have been chosen as His children, made “prime” in Jesus Christ. Might we let Him make us look more and more inwardly as we have already been made. From everlasting to everlasting. Amen!

Jeanne

Dear Diary...

Have you ever been allowed to read another’s journal? It is an amazing thing to be trusted with someone’s inner thoughts, struggles, joys, fears, expectations and hopes. We can learn about someone from their “story” but a journal exposes their soul.

Although we have more “story” on King David than any other single person in the Bible, we also have his personal journal. Nearly half the psalms are written from the real life of David, written from caves while unjustly being hunted like prey; from battlefields of miraculous victory and troubling defeats; from bedrooms sorrowing over sin.

In his psalms, David authentically put into words what it means to experience indisputable joy, unquestionable confusion, undeniable fear, understandable anger, unexplainable peace.  David held back nothing; he is almost embarrassingly honest.

Psalm 77:3-4  When I remember God, I moan; when I meditate, my spirit faints. ..I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

Psalm 16:11  You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Psalm 42:5-6  Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?

Don’t miss it. David’s psalms not only give us permission to have an emotional responses to life, but also ask us to refuse to deny them.  Yet, David’s psalms are not given to us to simply to encourage “venting” but to urge and compel us to take our emotions to the one who has given us breath.

David’s psalms reveal that the only way to neither deny our emotions nor be controlled by them is to submit them to the truths found in God Word that reveal His passionate and all-powerful love for us.  Praying through our fears and tears, with our Bibles open, we find a way to courageously face our emotions without being undone by them. 

Whether today finds you experiencing indisputable joy, unquestionable confusion, undeniable fear, understandable anger or unexplainable peace, don’t miss an opportunity to journal your own psalm. Bible open, why not pray through your own fears and/or tears—be they tears of joy or sadness?

You can trust God with your inner struggles, joys, fears, expectations and hopes. Besides, He already knows the “you” behind your “story.”  And we have far more reason to trust the love of God than David or any of the psalmists. In the words of C.S. Lewis,   “These poets knew far less reasons than we for loving God. They did not know that He offered them eternal joy; still less that He would die to win it for them.”

Psalm 131:2-3  But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me….O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forevermore.

Pattie

Saul's Hearing Test

1Samuel 15:22  And Samuel said, "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.

When my daughter Aubrey was just a toddler and the severity of her disabilities were just becoming evident, her pediatrician scheduled a hearing test. Since geneticists could not find the cause of her small head, which seemed to be contributing to global developmental delays, there were understandable concerns that deafness may be added to the growing list of disabilities. 

Although it was unsettling to see Aubrey’s tiny sedated body all wired up, it was a relief to find out that her brain’s ability to register sound was functioning perfectly! Aubrey can hear. Yet, sadly, time would reveal that Aubrey’s ability to “hear” did not mean she would be able to heed even the simplest directions.

Opening the first week of our new Sister to Sister study on Israel’s first king, Saul, I thought of Aubrey’s hearing test.  Once chosen by God, Saul was anointed by God’s prophet Samuel. As 1 Samuel unfolds, we learn that Saul’s was given a new heart, the power and presence of God’s Spirit to not just hear, but to listen.

Saul’s anointing as King was for listening, to hear and heed d the voice of God through His prophet Samuel. Saul began well. Tragically, he stopped listening. Worst of all, he wanted people to think he was listening. (Ironically it was the “sound” of sheep bleating—spoils of war Saul kept refusing to obey God’s voice—that gave Saul away. Everybody could “hear” the evidence that Saul stopped listening to God—especially Saul!) Saul was anointed to listen and when he became characterized by a refusal to listen, he lost his anointing as King of Israel (1 Samuel 15:26):

Once we place our faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, we are sealed with His Spirit, we are anointed by God. We become part of His royal priesthood destined to reign with Him for all eternity (1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 20:6). Upon our “annoitnting” we were given a new heart and the continual presence of God’s Spirit within us—everything we need to not just hear God’s word, but listen, to heed the very words of God.

Yes. I have been anointed to listen. And so have you. Are we?

Let’s not miss any and every opportunity to hear His Word.

Let’s listen to, heed each Word.

For our good and His glory, may we not forsake the beauty of evidencing the King of Kings for a few bleating sheep.

Pattie

I'm a follower

I broke open my new study of the Kings of the Old Testament and began to read the "Preface" introduction page.  Right away, I scowled at the first sentence.  "We were created to follow."  "Yeah, I'm not sure about that," I thought.  I'm always excited to start a new Bible study with my sisters.  That is absolutely true.  I love God's Word.  I love time diving in it together with other sisters.  But here I was only one sentence into the Preface of the book and realizing that I had already had a bad attitude about the study.  Was the study of a bunch of really old Jewish Kings and the pathetic, idol-worshipping people who followed them really going to speak to my life today?  I wrote in the margin of the Preface... "idea of following others so foreign to us today." Then I closed my study book, and decided to do something really spiritual.  I logged onto my computer and started scrolling through Pinterest.

As I stared at the pictures of food, craft projects, stylish outfits, and home decor, my eyes drifted towards the top of the web page and fell upon a little red rectangular button that said "follow."  I literally burst out laughing.  There it was.  God's little message to me, asking me if the idea of "following" was really as foreign as I thought it was.  Then I started thinking about all of the people that I was "following" - the friends on Facebook, the strangers on Instagram, the celebrities on Twitter, the creative peeps on Pinterest, and on and on and on.  At this point, the message was so clearly ironic in it's landing right between my eyes, that I didn't even try to argue that this type of following was different from the King following of the Israelites of the Old Testament.  Message received.  I am a follower.

So now, computer closed and back to the Preface.  "We are all influenced to follow someone or some idea, and we influence others in the same way."  Yep, there it is.  Whether or not I like it, I am following.  And whether or not I choose it, I am leading/influencing.  As I finished reading the Preface of the study, a smile cracked across my face.  Oh Lord, all this from just the Preface?  What do you have for me, for us, through the rest of this study?  A little bit of perspective sprinkled in with a healthy dose of life transformation?  I'll take it.

"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work."  2 Timothy 3:16-17

Desiring to follow God alone,
Amy