First Prunning's of the Lord

Dan recently went through a study on bitterness and the effects it has on your relationship with the Lord. I watched him go through the process of releasing those things in his life, and in our conversations about bitterness, I realized I have some bitter roots that have yielded some growth in my heart. 

So today I started reading the study. I put the book down when I read the following statement. 

" A clue is bitterness remembers all the details." 

Hm. That statement hit me straight in the heart and I put down the book, and had to chew on it. As I was chewing I could start recalling situations. The author also talked about bitterness begins when someone sins against you. When you sin, its guilt that you feel and bitterness is usually caused by someone close to you. 

We don't get bitter from things that are way out of our circle, yes, things make you angry but not bitter. Bitter is a root that doesn't need to be cultivated, it grows on its own. The problem with bitterness it produces bitter fruit. 

I think there was a reason I did not want to read this book, cause I knew I was going to recall so many things. I never thought I had bitterness toward anyone or anything, but the Lord hit me like a hammer today. I began writing down things that I remembered all the details from and the pain that it caused. 

There is pain in bitterness even if the other person was not even aware of hurting you, or sinning against you. Its not your job to convince them, its your job to pluck the bitter root out of your heart with the God's strength and forgive. Easier said than done. I am going to take a solo day tomorrow and journal and spend time in prayer and walk with the Lord through some bitter roots. 

Here's to the journey! 

What do I filter truth through?

God keeps bringing in front of my eyes and heart the idea of truth. Through people and the Word, women's conference online... all of these things are bringing me back to truth. What do I filter truth through? Do I filter it through pain tinted glasses? Do I filter them through lies that I believe?
What lies are you believing?

Why is it so easy to believe lies? Why can't we embrace truth? Why can't we live in that truth of who we are, and what God has made us to be. Why do we as women compare ourselves to other women?
I know I am more aware of what I wear when I go to a women's conference, and women's time.  How often do we go into a room of women and look and size them up? Ok maybe its just me.

This past summer the Lord brought me through a total identity change. I feel like I was birthed into the person He has wanted me to be but I had been to scared to embrace it. Why are we fearful?
I tell you, if the Lord had not done that then, I would be a mess out here in South Korea. God's timing is perfect, and never late. So my question to you, what are you needed to be birthed through? What is it that you are holding on to, and believing lies in?  What will it take to embrace the Truth, God's truth?
What will it take to live that truth out?

Be Still and Know

It seems that we are in another lesson about learning to Be Still. This is a lesson that the Lord has brought us to and thru that past year, but we are learning it again. 

So it brought me to look at the idea of stillness. 

Noun	1.	stillness - (poetic) tranquil silence; "the still of the night" hush, still silence, quiet - the absence of sound; "he needed silence in order to sleep"; "the street was quiet" poesy, poetry, verse - literature in metrical form
	2.	stillness - calmness without winds windlessness calmness - an absence of strong winds or rain
	3.	stillness - a state of no motion or movement; "the utter motionlessness of a marble statue" lifelessness, motionlessness state - the way something is with respect to its main attributes; "the current state of knowledge"; "his state of health"; "in a weak financial state" fixedness, immobility, stationariness - remaining in place

This definition is from the free online dictionary. Do any of the above stand out to you? Hush, still, silence are all ones that stand out to me. 

The question I raise is how often do I crave the stillness, the silence or being hushed. Is being hushed a good thing? I often think of someone hushing me as a bad thing. To me it smacks at my pride of them not wanting to hear what I have to say. 

Is being still possible in this day and age? A time where everything is go go go, and we move from one thing to the next. A time where distractions abound to take our focus off the very thing that Lord is calling us to; stillness. 

Or, is stillness not thinking, not working tirelessly to figure out what in the world is the Lord doing? 

I think to, does being still make me uncomfortable? and if it does, why?

Often times in the stillness, we get uncomfortable because we are suddenly faced with who God is and who we are, and who we are not. We see that God is in COMPLETE control, and we are not. 

Does that make you uncomfortable? Does being still mean we sit on the couch and zone out? 

Does it mean the Lord is just saying, Calm child, I got this. 

NO WORRIES. 

That is another post about worrying and the lessons I am learning.