Real Relationships

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In my quiet time this morning my thoughts congealed around relationships - specifically how they fluctuate based on what we put in them.

A relationship won't flourish on its own, but it most certainly will remain stagnant with no input. To me, a relationship is like a plant. It's not the perfect analogy but there are some similarities.

When you take a potted plant or a seed and you place it in the soil, your goal is to see that plant grow and flourish. Therefore, you make every effort to ensure that the plant has everything it needs for growth. The soil needs to be good soil so that the plant can take. Location and climate are also factors - you definitely need the sun and moderate temperatures.

But if you have all of this but you never water or weed or fertilize - guess what happens to your plant? Not much (unless it's a plant that requires minimal intervention), but even then it still won't flourish.  My mother in law loves orchids, so being influenced by this love I recently bought my first orchid. I learned from the vendor that this beauty only needs to be watered once a week. I couldn't believe it, but it has turned out to be true. Even though an orchid is a low maintenance plant, I still need to do my part.

Just like relationships a plant truly thrives when you take the time to nurture it - water it on schedule as needed, trim leaves as needed, remove weeds as needed, and add fertilizer if necessary.
When I did this my plants thrived; when I didn't they were lackluster.

This all reminds me of the Biblical principal of reaping what we sow. In our relationships, we get out proportional to what we put in.

Let's take time to tend the relationships in our lives:
Provide the right climate where they can thrive - initially, determine if you have similar values. You don't have to be at the same place in life but it is helpful if your value systems are in alignment. As an example, when I was younger I had a friend who had an interesting way of thinking about life - nothing mattered. While not being preachy I'm sure I tried to counter her views whenever I can; she was not open to it at that point in time so eventually our paths diverged. In my marriage, my husband and I have very similar values and that has made all the difference in the world.

Water and nurture  - implies that you put in effort on a regular basis. Therefore, always be ready to listen; be there as much as humanly possible; disagree amicably; and be kind to each other.

Remove weeds - sometimes differences occur; don't nurse hurts but do your best to address and deal with it. In the best of relationships, there will be disagreements and hurt feelings because we are humans and not immune to bad behavior.

Fertilize  - enjoy each other's company; do things "just because", laugh and hug and always listen; don't betray a confidence.

Remember this—a farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop. But the one who plants generously will get a generous crop. 2 Corinthians 9:6 [NLT]

Those who plant injustice will harvest disaster, and their reign of terror will come to an end. Proverbs 22:8 [NLT]

7 Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. 8 Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. 9 So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. Galatians 6:7-9 [NLT]

Plant your relationships in the soil of love and respect and be intentional about nurturing the relationships in your life. Some of us are like orchids and some of us need daily attention like roses; may the people in our lives give us the attention we need and may we do the same for the relationships in our lives.

Are you nurturing your relationships?

Book Review - Climbing With Abraham

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Sharing your thoughts with others can have wonderful results - but you've got to share first. As a result of my writing in this sphere, David Ramos approached me to review his Climbing With Abraham on Abraham.

In his initial email, he said, "My name is David Ramos. I am searching for reviewers who might be interested in reading a Christian devotional based on the life of Abraham and came across your blog because you have a similar approach to studying Scripture."

Flattered was an understatement. He read my blog, liked my style and saw that I wrote about things similar to what he captured in his book. So I eagerly embarked on this journey.

Since Climbing with Abraham is a 30-day devotional - I read and meditated on it during the month of December. As a reader and a writer, his writing styled resonated with me - it was simple, yet profound. More importantly, I got a new appreciation for the life of Abraham.

Some of my most compelling takeaways from this book were:

Abraham had a beginning - at the beginning of the story of Abraham, the Bible lists his descendants. Before we were, we came from somewhere. Our beginnings impact who we can become and our story begins long before we do. Our story is part of something infinitely larger.

Abraham made mistakes - God's patience and sovereignty are more powerful than our stumbles.

Abraham chose to believe - Therefore his faith impacted the faith of others he interacted with. The consequences of our faith do not just fall on us, but also onto our mates, our children, or our employees. Abraham, throughout his story, acted on what he believed.

Abraham's wife, Sarah was his constant companion - by our accounts, it would not appear that it was a perfect marriage; twice Abraham was willing to give Sarah away, and Sarah let her maid sleep with Abraham. As a couple they made mistakes but they were faithful to God and faithful to each other. Their blessings superseded their mistakes. In her death, he honored her for being there with him through thick and thin.

God's timing can baffle us - the story of Abraham reminds us that God’s plans are always incomprehensibly larger than our own. Abraham was frustrated along the way but held out hope on what was promised to him. Humans get frustrated because we don't understand God's ways.

Physical reminders - It’s okay to ask God, How can I know? Faith doesn’t always have to be
invisible.

Nothing is too difficult for God - In Abraham's life, Sarah gave birth to Isaac at 90. In my life, I've seen it and some of it I've shared here on this blog, my late in life child (she was an answer to pray of one of her siblings), and my lost and found stories - to name a few.

Finally, an excerpt from the author: "Sometimes following God’s will looks exactly like normal life. Making choices without knowing which one is correct, dealing with personalities and circumstances to find a suitable outcome, and just trying and praying and letting things fall where they will.
The Christian life is, for the most part, not supernatural. What Christ and the Holy Spirit did and do is certainly beyond this world. But on our part, most of what we do will be classified as normal. Normal prayers, normal errands, normal difficulties and frustrations, and normal successes. It’s God who takes the normal and turns it into supernatural."

Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return about this time next year, and Sarah will have a son. Genesis 18:14 [NLT]

As you start another year, take some time to meditate on Who controls your life. If you don't know, a devotional like this may be a good place to start. If you've become stagnant in your Christian walk, re-read the story of Abraham, a mere man who chose to believe the promises of God. Perhaps his life will help you to change your perspective also.

Notes From My Daughter - A Valuable Thing in a Desolate Place; A Lost and Found Story

Occasional notes from my 22-year-old daughter. I never know what to expect when she writes, but it's usually a pleasant surprise.  Read on!

My Daughter

"Weird" things happen to me all the time and to be quite honest, it's no coincidence. I'm not surprised that God has intersected my normal day-to-day living with his reality because this is what God has always done and I've learned to just be present during the lesson so I can fully learn how God has used a moment to teach me some everlasting truth.

In 2015 one of those moments happened to come on the weekend I was celebrating my birthday. For me, my birthday is the new year (sounds egotistic but I don't care), and leading up to it I pray for vision, clarity and set new goals. To be honest, I wasn't that thrilled about turning 22. In high school, I truly believed that by 22 everything would come together. But here I was 6 years later, a "graduate" of USC who still had 1 class to complete, no direction, no church, no vision and I was so lost as to how it all got to this point. "Why isn't my life together?" I thought, and then I didn't want to think about it anymore, which goes to say I didn't want to talk about it, which led me to stop praying about it and eventually praying sporadically in general. Because how can I address God about a life I'm living halfheartedly and how could He understand?

But like I said, I didn't stop praying in total. My birthday is something I always prayed about and as I was asking God what I should do I kept seeing a desert. So I looked up national parks and my heart got stuck on going to Joshua Tree National Park, a huge desert 2 hours away from Los Angeles.

My friends were surprisingly up for it, which is a shocker because I don't have nature loving friends who like to explore desert landscapes just for the heck of it. Everything was planned and on Saturday, October 31,2015 we headed towards our destination with expectant hearts.

All the fun was had! We rock climbed, had a photo-shoot, had a devotion at the top of a mountain, picnicked and watched the sun set. We even prayed that God would show us a shooting star (ask and you shall receive) which He did! It was great, and then,at the end of the day, I realized I lost my phone.

As soon as I realized my phone was really gone the parable of the woman and her lost coin in Luke 15 came to mind. Specifically, the portion that read:

"8 Doesn't she light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?"

To which my first response was, "I'm not going to search the pitch black cold desert for a phone; next idea Lord." And once I gained a little more patience I added, "We have to drive back to LA and I don't want to come back here. I don't want to give up hope, but having hope about something so insignificant doesn't make sense." Regardless of how I tried to justify my position, the need to believe my phone could be found nudged at me the whole 2-hour ride back to LA. I dropped my friends off and we prayed with one another, after doing a thorough search of my car; then I proceeded on my way home.

Suddenly as I put my car in drive, it hit me how valuable my phone was: all my songs were on there in my voice memos, all my poetry in the notes section, all the things I hid and worked at on my own were on my phone.

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I cried relentlessly as I realized the value of the things I had lost and the thought of never being able to recover them. While driving I began to pray and at the end of my prayer I looked up and to my surprise I saw another shooting star in the sky. I took it as a sign that somehow I would find peace at the end of this and God was with me.

God gave me a desire to work for what I saw as valuable and believe that it can be completed even when everything else seemed bleak. So the next morning I called the lost and found at Joshua Tree National park; I put my iPhone on "lost mode" from my iCloud account; I prayed and I went to church. My father took me to the AT&T store to find out what my options were for a new phone and what it would cost. I exhausted the options available to me for trying to find my phone and I was equally settled in trusting God, yet anxious to know what trusting God would lead to.

Later that day would you believe someone called my house from my iPhone to notify us that in this desert they found my iPhone! And they would be willing to help us get it back. According to the wonderful person who found my phone they were walking along an unusual route trying to find cell phone service when they looked down in a ditch and found my phone. Oh, and they don't even live in California they just happened to be doing a weekend trip with their outdoors group.

This particular moment of my perpendicular experience with God and my earthly life gave me a very important lesson: God values our diligence. I personally admire Nehemiah in the Bible, because he is the epitome of a diligent worker, but I've always felt like my personality is too different from his. I could not lead the building of a temple in 52 days but I'm glad God inspired someone to. But what work really boils down to is a series of intentional acts of obedience. Knowing what God has called you to do, you decide to systematically put in the effort, gradually progressing toward the point of completion, exhausted by every effort, because what He has said is overwhelmingly valuable in your life. Even if it seems impossible, do all that you can. God values your willingness to use your life to do His will.

And since God has allowed me to narrate these experiences I might as well let you in on a secret: I'm no one special, and what happened in this story could happen to anyone who is learning to trust God daily. I'm simply the person by which this story came and I hope it encourages you to trust God MORE each day.

In the comment section, I'd be interested to see what other lessons you readers may have found in my story and what those lessons mean to you. I hope you all have many moments like this in the new year. :)

The Christmas Story

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At this time of year, we are all familiar with the Christmas story. In case you aren't, I'd like to share it with you.

Mary was the young mother of Jesus, bethrothed to Joseph and divinely impregnated with this miracle child. Mary was anywhere between 12 and 14; unlike today's teens and pre-teens she may not have had any exposure to the birds and bees. So while she may not have been familiar with the ins and outs of having a baby she saw many of her peers married at a young age. Though it seems strange to us it was normal to her. But this normal was going to get even stranger.

An angel came to her and told her that she was going to have a baby - the Son of God.  Initially Joseph, who was much older than her did not believe her and only thought about what people would say if they found out he wasn't the father. But he too is visited by an angel, who confirms Mary's story.  So Joseph's heart is now softened toward his intended wife.

Mary's first pregnancy is quite unusual. After visiting her relative Elizabeth, she feels movement in her womb. I can only imagine that at this point Mary is amazed, while being humbled, and slightly afraid of what the birth will entail. Any mother to be knows, that once you feel movement in your womb, your mind finally accepts impending motherhood while being simultaneously amazed by the miracle of human life.

To complicate things further Mary and Joseph have to make the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem to be counted as part of the census. The trek from Nazareth to Bethlehem is about 100 miles; whether walking or travelling by animals this was quite an arduous trip in the third trimester. If walking, it may have made for a smooth uneventful delivery. If travelling on an animal's back I can imagine she felt every bump, as your nether regions are quite tender prior to delivery. Then, to give birth in a stable - with no additional medical personnel, just Joseph and God the Father watching over her to ensure that her delivery was smooth. I've often wondered who cut the umbilical cord, who cleaned her up and how did she recover so quickly.

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But in spite of it all - the divine conception, the angelic visit, the initial disbelief by her husband and the long journey just before giving birth, Mary persevered.

In childlike faith Mary, accepts this assignment. “I am the Lord’s servant, may your word to me be fulfilled.”  Luke 1:38

Three days before Christmas and I am struck by the young mother - Mary and her role in the Christmas story. Mary was the vessel for the greatest human gift. Mary was obedient and Mary had great faith. What would have happened if Mary insisted that this was not going to happen? What kind of Christmas story would we have? Those questions don't need to be answered because at Christmas time we are celebrating what actually happened - a Savior was born.
Who knows what great things can happen through us if we are obedient to God's messages.

16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 

17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 

18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 

19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. Luke 2:16-18 [NIV]

May you be blessed this Christmas, regardless of what's going on in your life and how you feel.

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