“They live like kings and queens.” - Jonny Lang

Money is a hot topic.  An inescapable entity.  We all think about, respond to, rely upon, and co-exist with money in a variety of ways.  Consider money.  Is it…

Source of pride
Source of power
Source of security
Status symbol in the fleeting game of earth

Something to fear
Something to cling to
Something to share
Something to hold loosely
Something to define you
or something you define
Something that you hold
Or something that holds you
(or something He holds)
A noose or a rope
A path or a pit
A necessity or a luxury
A detail or main focus
An object or an Obsession,
An addiction or take-it-or-leave-it
Fulfilling?
Freeing?
  
Individually, our personal value systems are evident in the ways we pursue the Almighty Dollar.  Collectively, our American culture unabashedly promotes wealth as the end goal.  You’ve arrived when you are inordinately wealthy.     

American Dream by Switchfoot
When success is equated with excess/ The ambition for excess wrecks us/ As top of the mind becomes the bottom line/  When success is equated with excess/ If your time ain’t been nothing but money/ I start to feel really bad for you, honey/  Maybe honey, put your money where your mouth’s been running/ If your time ain’t been nothing but money/ I want out of this machine/ It doesn’t feel like freedom/ This ain’t my American dream/I want to live and die for bigger things/I’m tired of fighting for just me/This ain’t my American dream/When success is equated with excess/ When we’re fighting for the Beamer, the Lexus/ As the heart and soul breathe in the company goals/ Where success is equated with excess/ Cause baby’s always talkin’ ’bout a ring/ And talk has always been the cheapest thing/ Is it true would you do what I want you to/ If I show up with the right amount of bling?/ Like a puppet on a monetary string/ Maybe we’ve been caught singing/ Red, white, blue and green/ But that ain’t my America/ This ain’t my American dream 

“Consider this,” says author and speaker, Tony Campolo, in an interview with Relevant magazine. ”The typical size of an American house has increased 40 percent in the last 25 years.  It’s not because we are having more children; we’re having fewer children!  We need bigger and bigger houses simply to hold all the stuff we don’t need.  What’s even worse is that we’re renting out space in storage bins because we can’t contain all the stuff we have in the huge houses we have at our disposal.  It has become an insane society as far as surplus is concerned.”  What a commentary on our modern-day culture of excess. It brings to mind the parable of the rich fool in Luke 12.

“Then he said to them, ’Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist the abundance of his possessions.’ And he told them this parable: ‘The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.  And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years.  Take life easy; eat, drink, and be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool!  This very night your life will be demanded from you.  Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.” Luke 12:15-21 

The proverbs say, “Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint.  Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle” (Proverbs 23:4-5).

Take this opportunity to consider your core beliefs about money.  Is it the end-all, be-all?  Is it worthy of the investment of your life?

Or might there be something more?  Could you possibly pour your passion, energies and moments into something Better, something that will last? 

My friends, just know that you can’t have it both ways.  Jesus himself told us in his Sermon on the Mount: “No one can serve two masters.  Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and Money.” (Matthew 6:24)

Come along as we continue our look at money…its clasp, our grasp, and conquering our love-hate relationship with the color green.

Tonight, you may be crying as you drive the lonely roads home.  You may be scared to death of what lies around the corner.  Perhaps you walked into a bad situation and can’t find your way out.  You may be hurting from the words of a man, the silence of a father, the screams of the world. 

You feel exposed. Vulnerable. You have worry lines on your face and bruises on your heart.

Tonight, hear the Father calling out to you, “Come to me, my Child. You will be safe here with me.”

“Let all who take refuge in You be glad;

Let them ever sing for joy.

Spread your protection over them,

That those who love your name may rejoice in You.

For surely, O Lord, you bless the righteous;

You surround them with your favor as with a shield.”

Psalm 5:11-12

He is reaching out to his daughters tonight.  Take refuge in His arms.  Let him spread his protection over you and surround you with his favor like a shield.

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High

will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,

my God, in whom I trust.”

Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare

and from the deadly pestilence.

He will cover you with his feathers,

and under his wings you will find refuge;

his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

You will not fear the terror of night,

nor the arrow that flies by day,

nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,

nor the plague that destroys at midday.

A thousand may fall at your side,

ten thousand at your right hand,

but it will not come near you.

You will only observe with your eyes

and see the punishment of the wicked.

If you make the Most High your dwelling—

even the Lord, who is my refuge—

then no harm will befall you,

no disaster will come near your tent.

For he will command his angels concerning you

to guard you in all your ways;

they will lift you up in their hands,

so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

You will tread upon the lion and the cobra;

you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;

I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

He will call upon me, and I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble,

I will deliver him and honor him.

With long life will I satisfy him

and show him my salvation.”

Psalm 91 from your Father with love.

Happy belated New Year, Sky City Girls!  I hope that 2007 is off to a beautiful start for each of you.  But if perhaps it isn’t, this post is for you.

January brought a piece of sad news: One of my closest friends was just laid off.  Called in, sat down, and told she was being replaced.  (We’ll call her Sarah.)  Sarah had a pretty good job at a well-respected company.  She handled administrative duties for, and basically took care of, two vice presidents.  This included expense reports and other number-crunching, however, which drove artistic Sarah a bit crazy.  `

Now, when Sarah broke the news to me, my immediate response was along these lines:

“This just means your “dream job” is around the corner!  God has something perfect waiting for you.  You just have to trust and keep walking forward.”  By “perfect”, I meant perfect for her God-given gifts, i.e. her people skills and creativity.  By “dream job”, I meant a job that would utilize her strengths - not just one, but all of them.  A job that would provide her with the opportunity for advancement, and one that would see her realize her professional dreams.  In fact, while letting her go, even her boss chirped to Sarah the same speech.

Now as her last day has come and the dust of the news settles, my words echo in my ears.  Is this truly what I believe? 

We say, “When God closes one door, He opens another.” 

Who says?  If by ’door’ we mean a pleasant circumstance, then we need to rethink the cliche.  

Let’s consider Moses for a moment.  Actually, at the beginning of his life, he had it made.  Rescued by Pharoah’s daughter as an infant, he was raised in Pharaoh’s Egyptian palace!  Talk about the dream life.  Then, a series of bad choices and circumstances landed him on the backside of the desert.  For 40 years!  His situation did not immediately reconcile itself.  Rather, God saw immeasurable value in the humbling, molding, training ground of a ‘bad situation.’  40 years worth.

My generation seems the most convinced of this theology.  We believe that we will go to college, graduate, and then within, oh, 3-5 years at the most, we should–and are entitled to–be in our “dream job” making big bucks and beginning our accumulation of a house, cars, a family, and three plasma screens.   And if we find ourselves the recipient of a raw deal at work, in a relationship, with our family, or our finances, we often assume that this is but a slight bump, and God now owes it to us to get us back on the fast-track to the good life.

Where did we get this?  Let me say, we didn’t get it from God.

In God’s economy, instead of upward mobility, we often actually ”jump from the frying pan into the fire.”  Sometimes, bad turns into ‘worse’.  Isaiah says, “When you walk through the fire…” because he knows that in life, we will.  Jesus himself was “led like a sheep to the slaughter.”  (Not exactly a Dream Job.)

I have heard it said that “God is more concerned with making us holy than happy.”*  Please chew on that for a minute.  Compare it with your life goals.  We are not promised a huge 401-K, a beautiful husband and children, and a three-car garage.  In fact, if we receive any of these things, it is only because of God’s grace poured out on our lives.

Today, if you find you that you have gone from the frying pan into the fire, take these words to heart:

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned,
the flames will not set you ablaze.
For I am the Lord, your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior…
Do not be afraid, for I am with you.”

Isaiah 43:1-5

Consider: What are my life goals/expectations?  

Making it real: I challenge you to offer each of them up to God in prayer.  Ask Him for the grace to trust him no matter how life unfolds.

Meditate through music:  “If You Want Me To” by Ginny Owens

*Gary Thomas in his book, Sacred Marriage

A clear head.  Is it a priority? 

During the course of a given day, we prioritize our appearance, our e-mail, our cell phone conversations, our relationships, lunch dates, appointments, workouts, Birthday dinners, church, dry cleaning, you name it.  And now that it is nearly December, it is even crazier.  Add on top of it all gift-buying, gift-wrapping, budget-keeping, cookie-baking, charity-donating, party-hosting, party-hopping, flight-booking, and church-going. WHO CAN THINK ABOUT KEEPING A CLEAR HEAD?

This is when the voice of God is calling to us, “Be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray” (I Peter 4:7).

I wonder what our day would look like if we prioritized a clear head and a lucid life.  It may include a silent car, empty of dj’s and music.  It may call us to turn off the television that last 30 minutes before bed, or during dinner.  It may mean taking a walk during our lunch break for the purpose of literally “clearing our head.”  Would it mean, Heaven forbid, turning off our cell phone?  Or perhaps a week without email.  I don’t know what it means for you.  But I know that whatever it is, for you and for me, it is necessary.  It is worth everything to find and keep a lucid mind so that we can pray.

The word “lucid” has taken on new meaning for me over the last month of my life.  My grandparents had been declining in strength of body and mind in recent months.  My Nana was nearing the end of her days, and we knew that she had very little time left with us.  The very same week, Granddaddy, her husband of almost 60 years, fell and broke his hip and had to go into the hospital.  He underwent surgery on his hip and remained in the hospital for recovery.  My family traveled back and forth between caring for her on her deathbed and caring for him in the hospital.  Because of Granddaddy’s age and other medical conditions, he remained under the influence of the anesthesia longer than expected.  First it was a day after the surgery, then it was three…Granddaddy hadn’t returned to his right mind.  He spoke to people not in the room and told grandiose stories with wild imagination. 

Day after day, we’d ask: “How is Granddaddy?”, and the response would come, “He’s still not lucid.”  He had not yet rejoined reality.

Then, my Nana passed away.  Before my Granddaddy was fully “with us” again after his surgery, his wife of 60 years died.  And although the news was pressing, as long as my grandfather was not “lucid”,  doctors encouraged us not to tell him.  Therefore, the funeral came and went, and so did several weeks before my Grandfather was declared “wth it” and lucid enough to receive such difficult news. 

While this was terribly sad, there was truly no way around it…You see, although he was with us in body, if he wasn’t with us in mind, he couldn’t really experience Life. 

Sisters, we may be alive with all of our vital signs, but if we are not present to Reality, if we are blinded by fantasies and illusions, if we are not of a sound and lucid mind, then we are incapable of experiencing Life as it truly is.   

Is Life going on without your knowing it?  Are you are living in a fog, hidden beneath a loud and busy mind? 

Awaken to Real Life…shake the cobwebs from your mind and allow God to speak to you.  In this season and always.

With love and Christmas blessings,

Katherine