tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-173912112024-03-19T06:59:35.451-05:00never been here beforeCome what may,
time and the hour runs through
the roughest day
(Macbeth 1:3)stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.comBlogger624125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-5073073211619732018-05-14T19:32:00.001-05:002018-05-14T19:32:09.248-05:00Moving<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've moved! Find my new blog over at <a href="http://www.stephaniejnelson.com/" target="_blank">stephaniejnelson.com </a>stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-58172092600750039312018-01-22T15:19:00.001-06:002018-01-31T13:55:59.472-06:00for what is small is not at all<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It was such a small thing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But it didn’t feel small.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And then I realized… that was sort of the point.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lots of us have our online “community” of friends. People we interact with on facebook, twitter, etc, that we have not met in real life. We might someday, but for now, we’ve connected online likely because of similar interests or perhaps political views. Either way, it’s a community. It’s different from those in real life, of course, but it still feels faithful to call it a community.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A new and large part of my online community comes from one thing we all have in common: the subscription to a magazine called <a href="https://christandpopculture.com/" target="_blank">Christ and Pop Culture</a>. Part of subscribing is a membership to a private Facebook group where we interact on all things Jesus and pop culture related. From there, friendships are “formed” and twitter followings have begun.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This is a story from that community.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I suppose it started when Matt Poppe and I followed each other on Twitter. I have no clue who followed who first. Then Matt wrote this article about why he abandoned the Billy Graham rule. (<a href="https://www.fathommag.com/stories/tired-of-making-enemies-out-of-allies"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">https://www.fathommag.com/stories/tired-of-making-enemies-out-of-allies</span></a>) How a desire to keep himself from following through on a sin very much at the forefront of his life - lust - led to something sinful as well: seeing women as the threat. Not the sin.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“it was increasingly difficult to see my sisters as anything other than an unwelcome threat to my righteousness and reputation, a minefield to be avoided rather than a relationship to be nurtured. “ Matt writes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">By the end of the article, I was simultaneously sobbing and cheering. And I’m still processing why. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Being a woman in church leadership is painful. More often than not. It can range from simply being frustrated with yourself that you didn’t say the right thing in a certain moment to feeling exhausted and overwhelmed at the expectations placed upon you… and most harmful, second-guessing everything you feel in your bones from the Lord about your call. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It’s that last one I’d like to intersect with Matt’s article.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The church has a long way to go before its marginalization of women ends. From refusing to allow women to stand behind to pulpit to expecting women to see their highest calling as motherhood, the church has hemmed women in so tightly to a cultural narrative that we feel strangled each and every day. It’s hard enough for a woman attending a church, much less one who works for one.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But then this.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">T</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">o see in black and white a fellow believer (and married man no less) call me “sister” </span><i>broke</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> me. My heart stopped a little and then the tears came and I was just... awash with gratitude. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">He called me “sister”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Like I said, it started so small, and then I realized why it wasn’t small at all.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I’m on my second career, my third home, my fifth car, my third computer, my second guitar. I’ve been called a feminazi because I dared say women have equal value than men in the eyes of God. I’ve been discounted for my theological hutzpah because I only do family ministry (and not “real” ministry) I’ve been emotionally abused by a boss who was also a pastor, and I have been not-so-gently nudged behind a pulpit that I wasn’t sure I was ready to stand behind.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My own story is as complex and it is layered, common as it is unique, and sad as it is joyful - just like the tears when I read Matt’s tweet. For no man has ever be willing to say that to me personally, in the context of Christianity. NONE.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The church has a long way to go. May these moments as small and as big as a tweet serve to push it further down the road.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Us women need it.</span></span></div>
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stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-15715650525708107892017-12-21T10:32:00.001-06:002017-12-21T10:32:24.871-06:00in the bleak midwinter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgno87tfzrh-Rvq-iLy53_mlFJH7BiDqNeqzlk9jycSRN8mg0b3zVWNaskoIehBEaOklYc0mU5vPfOZrjIiIvn93IOl2wvYgUEtGe_LhqGE_d0jqAUOs4XVftrm9IaOo3Zfkyacug/s1600/bleak.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="690" data-original-width="780" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgno87tfzrh-Rvq-iLy53_mlFJH7BiDqNeqzlk9jycSRN8mg0b3zVWNaskoIehBEaOklYc0mU5vPfOZrjIiIvn93IOl2wvYgUEtGe_LhqGE_d0jqAUOs4XVftrm9IaOo3Zfkyacug/s320/bleak.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've always been more comfortable in melancholy and sadness, more so that the average human being. It's something that 2017 taught me to lean into more, but also be careful of, since it can lead to unhealthy ways of thinking and skewed perspectives on reality.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So I've been in a place where I'm learning to own this part of my personhood, but trying hard not to let it sink me deep into a place where I don't belong. It's a tricky tightrope, one I'm thankful to walk because it means I'm learning healthier ways to find proper perspective, rather than just the tried and true "snap out of it" attitude that is so prevalent in my culture. And I've never been more aware of that as I have this Advent season.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This advent season has so far been full of a lot of joy... but also a lot of sadness. It's usually just sadness for me, so I'm thankful for those joyful moments. I've also learned to be thankful for the sad ones, because in both I learn more about who God has created me to be, and who he wants to mold me into being. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And there are few things that help me see these truths in the way music does.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Christina Rossetti is one of the greatest poets of the 19th century in my mind, having written more than 50 by the time she was 16. (This is my story, too, those hers were much much better.) Her sense of longing and sadness has always resonated with me, and never more so than in the song <i>In the Bleak Midwinter.</i> I own several versions of the song, with my favorites being the Choir of Christ's College and The Brilliance's version from the Advent, Volume 2 album.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>In the bleak midwinter, <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>frosty wind made moan, <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>snow had fallen, snow on snow,
snow on snow,<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>in the bleak midwinter, long
ago.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Our God, heaven cannot hold
him, nor earth sustain; <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>In the bleak midwinter a stable
place sufficed <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Angels and archangels may have gathered there, <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>but his mother only, in her
maiden bliss, <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>worshiped the beloved with a kiss.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>What can I give him, poor as
I am?<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><i>yet what I can I give him: give my heart.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">The beauty of this poem for me is how it perfectly juxtaposes both despair and sadness... the despair and sadness of being a follower of Christ. Every day I am wrecked by the ravages of the Fall, and yet every day I live in the reality that Jesus came, lived, and died for me. For the rescue and redemption of this world. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Our hope lies in the truth expressed in verse to, that heaven cannot hold out God... that he will come to reign. The ravages of the Fall have made me poor, living in the bleak midwinter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">So what can I give him? I can give him my heart.</span><br />
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<iframe allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" gesture="media" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/w9zWS1LpC8U" width="560"></iframe>stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-9554534525626299402017-10-15T12:52:00.000-05:002017-10-16T12:53:08.051-05:00the book of joshua - remain<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBldSxDIPAqfGOjkQo2Aq98k1NNSjfV8Htp2VHH9PY5Mrc1sKy_LLmKZJu23V6GQG9sm4QAKiM_LFUQm3b07pYSWhYj_rl8TA6c_ZHZCjSBr99_n1pg67UL4oO01a3O183vjRVQ/s1600/book+of+joshua.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="1024" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBldSxDIPAqfGOjkQo2Aq98k1NNSjfV8Htp2VHH9PY5Mrc1sKy_LLmKZJu23V6GQG9sm4QAKiM_LFUQm3b07pYSWhYj_rl8TA6c_ZHZCjSBr99_n1pg67UL4oO01a3O183vjRVQ/s320/book+of+joshua.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">This is Day 15 of a series of posts for the month of October. I’m joining Kate Motaung over at </span><a href="http://www.fiveminutefriday.com/" style="color: #4a4a4a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Five Minute Friday </a><span style="background-color: white;">for the annual Write 31 Days challenge. I will write about themes found in the book of Joshua each day, with a different word prompt.</span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Today's prompt word is: REMAIN</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It’s far too easy to read quickly past a phrase in Joshua 7:12, “I will not be with you anymore.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Achan had sinned. He broke the covenant God made with his people by taking some of the devoting things for himself. This break int he covenant affected all of Israel, not just Achan. And that’s why they lost at the first battle of Ai. The Lord didn’t remain.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I can’t help but wonder if God being the one who fought for Israel during this time wasn’t intended for a developing of trust and dependance. This is not something that comes naturally for us. We depend on ourselves first. Then maybe those in our circle. But God is rarely our first go-to. So maybe their victories, that could only happen because God was doing the fighting, were intended to bring about a true dependance on the only One who was be depended on.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Because nothing should strike more fear int he hearts of God’s people than knowing he has left them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I can’t help but wonder what it must feel like to God when we leave him.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">God doesn’t leave us now. Under the new covenant, Jesus ushered in a new age where the Holy Spirit is left with us as a comforter, the veil was torn in the temple, and we have full access to God. All the time. I never worry he’s gone. I know he remains.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But I rarely remain.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">While fear may have struck the heart of the men when they realized God wasn’t with them, I also am sure grief was, too. Joshua tore his clothes in grief when he discovered several of his friends had died in the defeat at Ai. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">God’s holy anger burned. And his blessing left them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Grief must fill God’s heart when we don’t abide in him. Choosing instead to leave, we chase after the idols of our heart, just life Achan chased after his. We always have the option of remaining in God’s love thanks to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. God remains., no matter what idols I chase. He is the steadfast one, faithfully remaining to show me his love.</span></span><br />
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stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-32178832150626824062017-10-14T12:31:00.000-05:002017-10-16T12:31:58.450-05:00the book of joshua - try<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBldSxDIPAqfGOjkQo2Aq98k1NNSjfV8Htp2VHH9PY5Mrc1sKy_LLmKZJu23V6GQG9sm4QAKiM_LFUQm3b07pYSWhYj_rl8TA6c_ZHZCjSBr99_n1pg67UL4oO01a3O183vjRVQ/s1600/book+of+joshua.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="1024" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBldSxDIPAqfGOjkQo2Aq98k1NNSjfV8Htp2VHH9PY5Mrc1sKy_LLmKZJu23V6GQG9sm4QAKiM_LFUQm3b07pYSWhYj_rl8TA6c_ZHZCjSBr99_n1pg67UL4oO01a3O183vjRVQ/s320/book+of+joshua.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is Day 13 of a series of posts for the month of October. I’m joining Kate Motaung over at </span><a href="http://www.fiveminutefriday.com/" style="color: #4a4a4a; font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Five Minute Friday </a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">for the annual Write 31 Days challenge. I will write about themes found in the book of Joshua each day, with a different word prompt.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Today's prompt word is: TRY</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I know sometimes I read the stories of the Old Testament and feel like God’s people didn’t even try.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Maybe it’s because we hear so many stories of how they screwed up and God kept chasing after they holiness. It never seemed to end... he kept on chasing them because they stopped... trying? I don't know. They stopped something.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We’re never like that, right? Post Exodus, Israel had 4 generations worth of bad habits to undo. I’m not talking about remember to floss. This was about what god to worship. They were still God’s people during their time in Babylon. Yet they didn’t act like, choosing instead to worship a multitude of pagan gods part of Egypt’s culture.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So I guess I should try and give them a little slack. They must have been trying. But wandering the desert for 40 years couldn’t have been easy. Only knowing (and maybe not even fully trusting) the end game must have been hard. I like to know what’s going to happen between point A and point B. God’s people didn’t know what it was going to look like to get to point B, the Promised Land. Day by day, they took orders and did what God commanded 9most of the time). I would complain, too. I would be worried, too. I might even take some stuff I wasn’t supposed to in order to feel more secure about that stuff in between.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Sometimes the trying may be half-hearted. It almost always feels like that for me.</span></span></div>
stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-90168167776358975182017-10-13T11:27:00.001-05:002017-10-13T17:14:17.305-05:00the book of joshua - invite<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBldSxDIPAqfGOjkQo2Aq98k1NNSjfV8Htp2VHH9PY5Mrc1sKy_LLmKZJu23V6GQG9sm4QAKiM_LFUQm3b07pYSWhYj_rl8TA6c_ZHZCjSBr99_n1pg67UL4oO01a3O183vjRVQ/s1600/book+of+joshua.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="1024" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBldSxDIPAqfGOjkQo2Aq98k1NNSjfV8Htp2VHH9PY5Mrc1sKy_LLmKZJu23V6GQG9sm4QAKiM_LFUQm3b07pYSWhYj_rl8TA6c_ZHZCjSBr99_n1pg67UL4oO01a3O183vjRVQ/s320/book+of+joshua.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is Day 12 of a series of posts for the month of October. I’m joining Kate Motaung over at <a href="http://www.fiveminutefriday.com/" style="color: #4a4a4a; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Five Minute Friday </a>for the annual Write 31 Days challenge. I will write about themes found in the book of Joshua each day, with a different word prompt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Today’s word prompt is INVITE.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So when I
decided to write on the book of Joshua for the Write 31 Days challenge with
Five Minute Friday, there were four unknown prompt words. Each Thursday night,
for years, Five Minute Friday has revealed a word to inspire our writing. But
for the Write 31 Days challenge, we were given all the words. Expect the (4) Five
Minute Friday prompts words.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I say this
because today is a prompt word I didn’t know about, and I couldn’t think of
anything about the word “Invite” that has to do with the book of Joshua.
Because there is nothing about this book that involving inviting. There’s a lot
of plundering, a lot of commanding, a lot of conquering, a lot of war. God
doesn’t “invite” his children to take over the Promised Land. He commands them.
Joshua doesn’t invite his people to roll the large stones against the mouth of
the cave where the kings were hiding. He commanded them to. The cities did not
invite God’s people in, the fought against them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So here I
write... trying to figure out, with a prompt word that is the opposite of everything
this book is about ...what to say.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But maybe
that’s the point.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">While I think
there are many inviting things about the gospel, obedience doesn’t always look
like one, especially to someone who hasn’t experienced the heart transforming work
of Christ in their lives. These commands God gives can feel rigid and
unsettling. Controlling and demanding. Unfair and… well, a buzzkill.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But God was
not just commanding the people in Joshua. Nor is he just commanding us. He is also inviting us into a better story. A story he’s written, yes, but one that will
ultimately lead to blessing and not defeat. This invitation is not about us and
the story that we want. It’s about the best story. The right story.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The true gospel is an invitation to freedom and not a prison full of demands. Our God does ask
for obedience, but ultimately that obedience leads to a promised land.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-7470954810906914122017-10-12T14:24:00.002-05:002017-10-12T14:24:16.228-05:00the book of joshua - write<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBldSxDIPAqfGOjkQo2Aq98k1NNSjfV8Htp2VHH9PY5Mrc1sKy_LLmKZJu23V6GQG9sm4QAKiM_LFUQm3b07pYSWhYj_rl8TA6c_ZHZCjSBr99_n1pg67UL4oO01a3O183vjRVQ/s1600/book+of+joshua.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="1024" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBldSxDIPAqfGOjkQo2Aq98k1NNSjfV8Htp2VHH9PY5Mrc1sKy_LLmKZJu23V6GQG9sm4QAKiM_LFUQm3b07pYSWhYj_rl8TA6c_ZHZCjSBr99_n1pg67UL4oO01a3O183vjRVQ/s320/book+of+joshua.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This is Day 11 of a series of posts for the month of October. I’m joining Kate Motaung over at <a href="http://www.fiveminutefriday.com/" style="color: #4a4a4a; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Five Minute Friday </a>for the annual Write 31 Days challenge. I will write about themes found in the book of Joshua each day, with a different word prompt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Today’s word prompt is WRITE.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It took me years to understand the history of Israel, our history. I still am missing a lot, but the more I read and study, the more the string of history, holding together the lives of God's people, makes sense to me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The time and place of God's people in the book of Joshua is what I would label as "penultimate." For generations, they heard about how God would give them a Promised Land, a lang flowing with milk and honey, He promised to make them a great nation, and that a great King would come from their lineage. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Here's the thing that would have driven me CRAZY if I were one of God's people back then: <i>that I didn't know what the fulfillment of all those promises would look like. </i>Especially once generations and generations were born and no land was given over, a nation was enslaved, and no great King was coming. (They had to wait a reeeeeeally long time for that one.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">At the same time, as I grow older, I've learned to appreciate that someone else is writing my story.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I knew, once I decided to enter the ministry, that I would have a limited amount of control over where God would send me. The choices were still mine, but ultimately God would clear the path I was intended to take. I can remember agonizing over the future as 20-year old college girl, desperate for God to give me a neon sign telling me which major to chose and then which job offer to take once I graduated.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And I still wrestle with this sometimes. But I also know that as long as I am not living a sinful and rebellious life - that the choices i make are honoring to Him - that I am ultimately not out of God's will. For He is planning all this stuff in the background to prepare the way He would have me go.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I want no one else writing my story. Not even me.</span>stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-87627208568956772882017-10-11T12:02:00.004-05:002017-10-13T09:03:09.764-05:00the book of Joshua - remember<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is Day 10 of a series of posts for the month of October. I’m joining Kate Motaung over at <a href="http://www.fiveminutefriday.com/" style="color: #4a4a4a; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Five Minute Friday </a>for the annual Write 31 Days challenge. I will write about themes found in the book of Joshua each day, with a different word prompt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Today’s word prompt is REMEMBER.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The parting
of the Red Sea in Exodus gets all the glory as far as seas parting in the Old
Testament go, so it’s not as well known that another one happened at the Jordan
River in the book of Joshua.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">God dried of
the land in both cases, not just merely parting the waters and making his
people sludge through the mud. As if parting the waters so his people could cross
wasn’t impressive enough. The ark needed to make it with them and God was, in
his covenant faithfulness, providing yet another way for his people to flourish
by getting them into the Promised Land. The priests’ feet were lifted up on dry
ground and once they crossed the waters returned as if nothing had happened.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After they all finished crossing, God commanded Joshua
to have one man from each tribe take a stone from the river, right where the
priests stood firmly, and take them where they set up camp for the night.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">God wanted
the children of these people to have a sign, revealing the great work God had
done from them in this place. He wanted them to remember. <o:p></o:p></span></span><i style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">“So that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the LORD is mighty, that you may fear the LORD your God forever.”</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> -Joshua 5:24</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One of the biggest hurdles to overcome each time I am feeling full of doubt and
uncertainty is to remember. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">REMEMBER who
God is and what he has done for me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">REMEMBER who
he created me to be, and his call upon my life.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">REMEMBER
that my identity lies solely in his work and not my own or another’s.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">REMEMBER that
He is always faithful and He is Sovereign.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">REMEMBER
that he loves me. No matter what.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-16437737877347007292017-10-10T07:35:00.000-05:002017-10-11T11:21:41.181-05:00the book of Joshua - listen<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is Day 9 of a series of posts for the month of October. I’m joining Kate Motaung over at <a href="http://www.fiveminutefriday.com/" style="color: #4a4a4a; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Five Minute Friday </a>for the annual Write 31 Days challenge. I will write about themes found in the book of Joshua each day, with a different word prompt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Today’s word prompt is LISTEN.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A lot of
commands fly about in the book of Joshua. Things that seems normal “go and spy
and find out what we’re up against”. Things that seem crazy, “March for seven
days and you’ll win. I promise.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There was
much to be done. They were taking over the Promised Land. Kings had to be
defeated. Cities overtaken. God’s people were obeying (most of the time),
listening to what he said and following through to be successful the physically
take over the land.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But what
about spiritually?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In chapter
5, they set aside time to circumcise the new generation. This can be a “huh?”
moment in a book mostly about war. Was it wise to delay a whole section of men
fighting for a period? This wasn’t something they could do in a day and be
ready to fight the next.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In Old
Testament time, circumcision for the Jewish people was a sign of their covenant
relationship with God. Circumcision rarely occurred for people outside the
Jewish faith. (The only recorded exceptions were the slaves of Jewish people.) This
act of obedie</span>nce was the sign of a new start – leaving the old ways from their
time in slavery behind them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span class="text"><i><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">And the
commander of the <span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"></span></span></i></span><span class="small-caps"><i><span style="background: white; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 107%;">Lord</span></i></span><span class="text"><i><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">'s army said to Joshua, “Take
off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.”
And Joshua did so.</span> </i></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">– Joshua
5:15<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="text"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Nothing is recorded about God’s people
training for war in a physical sense. There is no talk of sword fighting
drills, running laps and push-ups (the jr. high girl inside me just started hyperventilating
at the thought of doing wall sits for volleyball). Nothing at all to suggest Joshua
put his people through rigorous training to prepare them for the fight ahead.
But they did prepare God’s way.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="text"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We often forget that preparing for anything
that God has called us to do is just as much about listening and it is about doing.
In this moment, when the command of the Lord’s army appeared before him, Joshua
knew. He knew that preparing for battle wouldn’t be about the proper way to
plunder a city. It would be about listening o God’s direction and knowing he
was with them.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-4611456108680994972017-10-09T19:00:00.000-05:002017-10-12T08:19:04.614-05:00the book of Joshua - plan<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBldSxDIPAqfGOjkQo2Aq98k1NNSjfV8Htp2VHH9PY5Mrc1sKy_LLmKZJu23V6GQG9sm4QAKiM_LFUQm3b07pYSWhYj_rl8TA6c_ZHZCjSBr99_n1pg67UL4oO01a3O183vjRVQ/s1600/book+of+joshua.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="1024" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBldSxDIPAqfGOjkQo2Aq98k1NNSjfV8Htp2VHH9PY5Mrc1sKy_LLmKZJu23V6GQG9sm4QAKiM_LFUQm3b07pYSWhYj_rl8TA6c_ZHZCjSBr99_n1pg67UL4oO01a3O183vjRVQ/s320/book+of+joshua.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is Day 8 of a series of posts for the month of October. I’m joining Kate Motaung over at <a href="http://www.fiveminutefriday.com/" style="color: #4a4a4a; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Five Minute Friday </a>for the annual Write 31 Days challenge. I will write about themes found in the book of Joshua each day, with a different word prompt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Today’s word prompt is PLAN.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">They had a plan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">They went up to Ai to spy on the city, to see what their
plan of attack should be. When they came back, they said to only send 2 or 3
thousand men, because there just weren’t that many of them to defeat. They
expected a short battle with just a few men. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This was their plan. They planned for success.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But they didn’t know that God’s blessing had left them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The sin of Achan, directly disobeying God by taking some of
the things devoted for God’s treasury (6:18-19), had a collective consequence
for the people of God. It wasn’t just Achan, the one who first disobeyed, that
was punished.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Of the 3,000 went up to attack the city of Ai, 36 were killed.
Considering the wars and battles and mass shootings we hear about today, that
seems like a small number. But for God’s people, who had lost no one… who had
the promise of God fighting for them… who obeyed God doing crazy things like
blowing trumpets to bring down a six-foot-thick wall… 36 men dying was a big
deal. Their defeat was a big deal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It wasn’t part of their plan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It’s no wonder Joshua tore his clothes off in mourning
before the Lord. (Joshua 7:6) after this defeat. He knew it had nothing to do
with the strength of the men in Ai that they lost. Because Joshua knew God was
the one fighting for them. So he knew God was the one who brought about their
defeat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Planning is a never-ending tension in the life of a Christ
follower. God is sovereign, and we must also do stuff. We must make choices,
plan our days and weeks. Plan for emergencies by keeping a savings, make and
keep doctor’s appointments to keep ourselves healthy. Our whole lives as
Americans is about planning, really.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Yet we must hold these plans so loosely. In our hands and our
hearts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>The heart of man plans
his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.</i> (Proverbs 16:9)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Holding our plans loosely is often what keep people away
from God. They fear being out of control, being forced to do things, not
knowing what is ahead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But the promise we have is that the one who plans and directs
our steps is the one who created us, loves us, and knows us intimately.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Following his plan is easier when we understand the depth
of his love for us. He is always for us, which means no matter what his plan
looks like, it is GOOD.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , "verdana" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-49255329727929890652017-10-08T17:00:00.000-05:002017-10-10T10:52:26.144-05:00the book of Joshua - truth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBldSxDIPAqfGOjkQo2Aq98k1NNSjfV8Htp2VHH9PY5Mrc1sKy_LLmKZJu23V6GQG9sm4QAKiM_LFUQm3b07pYSWhYj_rl8TA6c_ZHZCjSBr99_n1pg67UL4oO01a3O183vjRVQ/s1600/book+of+joshua.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="1024" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBldSxDIPAqfGOjkQo2Aq98k1NNSjfV8Htp2VHH9PY5Mrc1sKy_LLmKZJu23V6GQG9sm4QAKiM_LFUQm3b07pYSWhYj_rl8TA6c_ZHZCjSBr99_n1pg67UL4oO01a3O183vjRVQ/s320/book+of+joshua.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This is Day 7 of a series of posts for the month of October. I’m joining Kate Motaung over at <a href="http://www.fiveminutefriday.com/" style="color: #4a4a4a; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Five Minute Friday </a>for the annual Write 31 Days challenge. I will write about themes found in the book of Joshua each day, with a different word prompt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Today’s word prompt is TRUTH.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but
you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do
according to all that is written in it.” </i>– Joshua 1:8<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This was one of the rare Old Testament verses I had to
memorize as a kid (I grew up in an almost entirely New Testament -focused
church.) It’s inadvertently lead me to believe, for most of my childhood and a
good portion of my adult life, that the Bible’s purpose was the Law. To tell us
what to do. While that is part of what the Bible is for, it’s primary purpose
is to</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> impart the truth of God’s character. For it’s out of this knowledge the
Law is built.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Law tells us a great dealt about who God is. It’s
reminds us of his justice, his compassion, his power, his mercy, his holiness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It also reminds us of our sinfulness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The truth of the Gospel involves both good and bad news. At
this point in the book of Joshua, God’s people have just been read the Law.
After their years in slavery, they need rules and regulations to be disciplined
back into what they were created for: to worship the one true God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In an ever-changing world, I am thankful to have a solid foundational
truth to hold on to. Scripture grounds me in a world that does everything to
keep me aimlessly floating, unsure of who I am and what I am called to do. This
is why God calls us to keep the Book of Law from departing from us. Because it’s
truth is constantly a reminder of who God is and who he created us to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-76376729786604678442017-10-07T12:08:00.001-05:002017-10-07T12:10:52.422-05:00the book of joshua - hold <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBldSxDIPAqfGOjkQo2Aq98k1NNSjfV8Htp2VHH9PY5Mrc1sKy_LLmKZJu23V6GQG9sm4QAKiM_LFUQm3b07pYSWhYj_rl8TA6c_ZHZCjSBr99_n1pg67UL4oO01a3O183vjRVQ/s1600/book+of+joshua.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="1024" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBldSxDIPAqfGOjkQo2Aq98k1NNSjfV8Htp2VHH9PY5Mrc1sKy_LLmKZJu23V6GQG9sm4QAKiM_LFUQm3b07pYSWhYj_rl8TA6c_ZHZCjSBr99_n1pg67UL4oO01a3O183vjRVQ/s320/book+of+joshua.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is Day 6 of a series of posts for the month of October. I’m joining Kate Motaung over at <a href="http://www.fiveminutefriday.com/" style="color: #4a4a4a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Five Minute Friday </a>for the annual Write 31 Days challenge. I will write about themes found in the book of Joshua each day, with a different word prompt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Today’s word prompt is HOLD.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4bYPPMHNx8zdUqptXVn3S0ufIWRQL5nDzc5OuVOaEErjpE76jBEQrdbbYEQ1ZWToG09PhH-awq02jzL9sloLNzyh15Te09NEA_bV909tGtFTwAYKJ2jt6Qpiy1okxhUpV3-rRYA/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="745" data-original-width="746" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4bYPPMHNx8zdUqptXVn3S0ufIWRQL5nDzc5OuVOaEErjpE76jBEQrdbbYEQ1ZWToG09PhH-awq02jzL9sloLNzyh15Te09NEA_bV909tGtFTwAYKJ2jt6Qpiy1okxhUpV3-rRYA/s200/FullSizeRender.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We’ve been spending a lot of time in Joshua, but today I want to take you back to set up the context for the book. After all, context is king when it comes to Scripture interpretation.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I want to talk about those 40 years before the book of Joshua. After being released from their bondage in Egypt. (Remember the plagues and the Rea Sea parting? That was God getting them out.) But here’s the thing: from where they were to where they were going (Canaan, the Promised Land) it was only about 400 miles.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And it took them 40 years.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“Why did Moses wander the desert for 40 years? Because even back then men wouldn’t ask for directions.” </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I mean obviously this was not a day’s drive or anything. They had to walk or ride their camels. There were mountains to get around, it was the desert. It wasn’t going to be an easy journey. But 40 years? This wasn’t because they couldn’t find Canaan. It’s because God held them back.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“And the Lord's anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord was gone.” (Numbers 32:13)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">God’s people were scared that going into Canaan involved fight people a lot bigger than them. “We are like grasshoppers next to them!” they cried. When learning it wasn’t be a cake walk to take over Canaan, they complained. They were sick of manna, and missed Babylon. What a testament this is to how we would rather be enslaved in sin than free in Christ, just because he tells us to do what’s best for us. We are a stupid people.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">God knew his people weren’t ready. They had been so tainted by 400 years of living in a pagan land, they’d forgotten Who they belonged to, Who they were to worship, Who they were to follow. They want to follow their own sinful hearts.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So God held them back, and pursued them to holiness , to bring them back to where they belonged. With Him.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">God holds us back for all kinds of reasons, but I can’t think of no better reason than to do so for our growth and sanctification. He knows when we are ready and when we aren’t. That’s why He holds us.</span></span></div>
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stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-76973829302749906692017-10-06T19:30:00.000-05:002017-10-07T11:07:09.709-05:00the book of joshua - story<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is Day 5 of a series of posts for the month of October. I’m joining Kate Motaung over at <a href="http://www.fiveminutefriday.com/" style="color: #4a4a4a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Five Minute Friday </a>for the annual Write 31 Days challenge. I will write about themes found in the book of Joshua each day, with a different word prompt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Today’s word prompt is STORY.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRLc89p_HIKwElyd1F4B48l3O3RUDsiqpVHk_jcJgx91nnE7_p1LA1OiBwkDIGrNb1Hz7Fr7hJoDo4fA4UYu4V6LmwzI7afknJvzhkb5HKjEivkdAnJACTqhbNFpFe-F56rBwaPQ/s1600/31-Days-of-Five-Minute-Free-Writes-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRLc89p_HIKwElyd1F4B48l3O3RUDsiqpVHk_jcJgx91nnE7_p1LA1OiBwkDIGrNb1Hz7Fr7hJoDo4fA4UYu4V6LmwzI7afknJvzhkb5HKjEivkdAnJACTqhbNFpFe-F56rBwaPQ/s1600/31-Days-of-Five-Minute-Free-Writes-10.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There are a lot of stories in the book of Joshua that are fascinating to study and consider. But there is one more famous than all the rest.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I remember being in Sunday School as a kid, pretending to play a trumpet and marching around the room seven times. I remember the teacher telling me how cool it was that the walls of Jericho came down. I remember singing that child’s song , “Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho // Joshua fought the battle of Jericho and the walls came a-tumbling down” I’m pretty sure our teacher had us collapse while singing the “a-tumbling down” part, too.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As a college student, I remember falling in love with Veggie Tales as I watched a bunch of french peas shoot purple slushies at God’s people while they marched around the wall. Pretty sure that’s not how it went down.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As an adult, I’ve realized just how significant it is to read the Bible as one story. If you single out one of the stories in Scripture, like the Battle at Jericho, you can get a lot of wrong ideas of who God is. I’m pretty sure all I took away from that story as a child is that God likes to do cool things like make stone walls six feet thick comes down just by the marching and yelling. That is sooooooo not the point of the story.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The I find the point of the story in 6:27, “So the Lord was with Joshua…”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I can’t take what I learned as a child about Jericho into adulthood and have it matter much. Having a God that does cool things, even powerful things, is good to know. But it means so much more to also know that the Lord was with them. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Why? As a covenant theologian, I believe God’s people include me. So this story tells me that He is with me, too.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is my story. It’s the story of God’s people. He is with us always, never leaving or forsaking them.</span></span></div>
stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-32682119688320716282017-10-05T10:05:00.000-05:002017-10-07T11:05:51.090-05:00the book of Joshua - trust<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is Day 4 of a series of posts for the month of October. I’m joining Kate Motaung over at <a href="http://www.fiveminutefriday.com/" style="color: #4a4a4a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Five Minute Friday </a>for the annual Write 31 Days challenge. I will write about themes found in the book of Joshua each day, with a different word prompt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Today’s word prompt is TRUST.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">At the beginning of the book of Joshua, there is a transfer of power. Moses has died and Joshua is now in charge.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I don’t presume to know what in the world God’s people were thinking at the time. But I feel like they had to be scared. The leader that defeated Pharaoh and took them out of Babylon, the leader that kept them safe while wandering the desert... he was not going with them into the Promised Land. Yet they trusted.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I would like to hope were I in that same situation that I would have responded with the same trust, “Whatever you have commanded us we will do, and where you send is we will go,” they cried with surety! “Just as we fully obeyed Moses, so we will obey you” (Joshua 1:16-17)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I don’t know if they missed it or not, but I think it’s important to remind us all at this point that Joshua isn’t the one they should have put their trust in.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I’m sure Joshua had proven himself during their time together to be a great and trustworthy leader. But he wasn’t the one who defeated Pharaoh. He wasn’t the one who freed them from slavery and got them to the Promised Land. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Neither was Moses.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We might be able to think that the parting of the Red Sea was God’s only participation in their release from Babylon. We might even be able to think that during those years wandering the desert, that it was their own wisdom and smarts that kept them safe from outside forces. But it wasn’t.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We see continuously in Scripture how God is for His people. He fights them. The victory is His. We will be disappointed when we put our trust in people. That’s a certainty. We will also be disappointed when we trust in God, too, though. Not because He fails us… but because often our will isn’t His will. When rejection and failure come upon us that disappoints us. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The difference is that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is why we can trust.</span></span></div>
stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-47668919770916327542017-10-04T11:59:00.001-05:002017-10-04T18:21:01.618-05:00the book of Joshua - hope<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBldSxDIPAqfGOjkQo2Aq98k1NNSjfV8Htp2VHH9PY5Mrc1sKy_LLmKZJu23V6GQG9sm4QAKiM_LFUQm3b07pYSWhYj_rl8TA6c_ZHZCjSBr99_n1pg67UL4oO01a3O183vjRVQ/s1600/book+of+joshua.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="1024" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBldSxDIPAqfGOjkQo2Aq98k1NNSjfV8Htp2VHH9PY5Mrc1sKy_LLmKZJu23V6GQG9sm4QAKiM_LFUQm3b07pYSWhYj_rl8TA6c_ZHZCjSBr99_n1pg67UL4oO01a3O183vjRVQ/s320/book+of+joshua.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is Day 3 of a series of posts for the month of October. I’m joining Kate Motaung over at <a href="http://www.fiveminutefriday.com/" style="color: #4a4a4a; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Five Minute Friday </a>for the annual Write 31 Days challenge. I will write about themes found in the book of Joshua each day, with a different word prompt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Today’s word prompt is HOPE.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The book of Joshua is known by most to be a book of war.
Battle after battle is recorded, violence like thousands dying because the Lord’s
blessing left His people, heads of kings getting cut off, walls crumbling, cities
and people plundered…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So why has this book captivated my heart for so many years?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Because I want to view all things with a lens of
redemption.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I really hope that doesn’t come across as holier than
though, but my heart grows weary with all that is broken in the world. My heart
is tired of always going to a dark place when there is light.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I learned earlier this year that I have a natural (psychological?)
bent toward the negative. Left unchecked, I easily spiral into the worst
possible side of any word spoken and any situation I’m placed in. This was a wake-up
call for me, not because I didn’t realize it, but because I did. I just didn’t
see the consequences for my soul.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I grew up with the belief that the Old Testament was full of
a bunch of old and somewhat scary stories that weren’t relevant to us today.
Plenty of them are scary, but they are certainly not irrelevant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This gives me hope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Just like I choose to find redemption in today’s pop
culture, I also chose to focus on the powerful moments of hope the book of
Joshua gives us today. Some of the redemption I see:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">-God always keeps His promises<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">-God pursues His people into holiness</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">-God fights for us<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">-God is gracious and loving to those who don’t deserve it<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">-God demands things for our good, not His.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">These truths give me hope, for they are about our God... who
most certainly is a God of HOPE.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-67865057198366782162017-10-03T21:30:00.000-05:002017-10-07T10:17:49.887-05:00the book of joshua - create<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBldSxDIPAqfGOjkQo2Aq98k1NNSjfV8Htp2VHH9PY5Mrc1sKy_LLmKZJu23V6GQG9sm4QAKiM_LFUQm3b07pYSWhYj_rl8TA6c_ZHZCjSBr99_n1pg67UL4oO01a3O183vjRVQ/s1600/book+of+joshua.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="1024" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBldSxDIPAqfGOjkQo2Aq98k1NNSjfV8Htp2VHH9PY5Mrc1sKy_LLmKZJu23V6GQG9sm4QAKiM_LFUQm3b07pYSWhYj_rl8TA6c_ZHZCjSBr99_n1pg67UL4oO01a3O183vjRVQ/s320/book+of+joshua.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is Day 3 of a series of posts for the month of October. I’m joining Kate Motaung over at <a href="http://www.fiveminutefriday.com/" style="color: #4a4a4a; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Five Minute Friday </a>for the annual Write 31 Days challenge. I will write about themes found in the book of Joshua each day, with a different word prompt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Today’s word prompt is CREATE.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">God created a future for them</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Israel was finally free from slavery and their time in the
dessert wasn’t wondering because f God. It was because of them. God was calling
them back to Him. After generations of worshiping the false gods of Babylon,
new habits needed to be formed. New hearts created. A calling back to the
holiness of YHWH.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I wonder what made God think they were ready to take on the
Promised Land? I’d like to think it was something He saw in them – that their
holiness was progressing. That those new habits were solidified. But we know
from the rest of scripture that wasn’t the case.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But He pushed them onward anyway, and still after all His
pursuing, with new rules and regulations given to them, Israel still tried to
create their own future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One of the first examples of this in the book of Joshua is
in the story of Achan. He wanted the things set aside at God’s order for
himself. He was hoping to create a new future for his family, one greater than
everyone else’s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is no unique story, for we see over and over again people creating their own story.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Completely forgetting who their Creator was.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The nature of creating is that we have control. A potter
moves their hands in certain places as the wheel spins to create the right
shape. A painter controls their brushes strokes over the canvas to create what
is in their minds. A writer types and types, deleting at will in order to
communicate the desire message.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We all would rather have control that be spinning out of
control. <span style="color: #073763;"><a href="http://neverbeenherebefore.blogspot.com/2015/12/no-longer-and-not-yet.html" target="_blank">Not long ago</a></span>, my entire felt like I was simply in the eye of the
tornado, and while everything spun around me all I could do was react instead
of act. These seasons of life are awful for us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But they really don’t have to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Because God is the Creator of all things, and He is the one
in control of all the spinning. I’d forgotten that as I continued to picture
myself in the eye of the tornado, helpless and fearful. My desire was the
create my own path and I failed to trust in the One who has a path laid out for
me. Creating and trusting truly go hand in hand in the life of the believer, because creating within the will of God is best for us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our Creator is wise and powerful and merciful and just. Why wouldn't we want to be under His will?</span></div>
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stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-15208899678535602222017-10-02T15:30:00.001-05:002017-10-04T11:53:57.103-05:00the book of joshua - tell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14.300000190734863px;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is Day 2 of a series of posts for the month of October. I’m joining Kate Motaung over at <a href="http://www.fiveminutefriday.com/" style="color: #4a4a4a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Five Minute Friday </a>for the annual Write 31 Days challenge. I will write about themes found in the book of Joshua each day, with a different word prompt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Today’s word prompt is TELL.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The story of Rahab is one of the most redemptive stories in scripture for me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Remind me?</i> Rehab was the prostitute who took care of the spies Joshua sent to check out the situation in Jericho. <i>Why is she a big deal?</i> Because she wasn’t one of God’s chosen people and she was ordered by the king of Jericho to bring the spies to him. (She ran an inn, so it was likely the spies, once the king caught wind of the plan, would come to stay with her.) she she ignored the King of Jericho and instead hid the spies and lied to him. Seriously. Good for her. That could not have been easy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">After hiding the spies, she tells them that she has heard the stories of their God, YHWH, and she asks that when them come to overtake Jericho they spare her and her family. Which they do, which is pretty important... because she became the mother of Boaz, who married Ruth from whose son, Obed, Jesse the father of David came, through whose line Jesus was born. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Despite her saucy past, Rahab was used by God in one of the most powerful ways possible in Scripture. She had the courage to tell the King of Jericho a lie, and the courage to tell the spies that she knew of their God. Her story is echoed in many of the faithful people in scripture willing to risk their lives, willing to speak though oppressed, in order to help further the kingdom of God on earth.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We live in the tension of being already forgiven and not yet restored to the glory. Rehab stands as a perfect picture of this tension: an unlikely heroine whose place in Jewish history is unprecedented. And she wasn’t even Jewish herself.</span></span></div>
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stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-75452242461046158512017-10-01T14:56:00.000-05:002017-10-04T11:54:24.738-05:00the book of Joshua - worship<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLddy37fKffnMIAMG7eh71Jqt8nIxDX8yVsLE1SGQiZ2CxB-wyDQTvd4yKpGoZ9baQsVEBsH299HMWdh0YW18ZC8tNA4tr_N5pRz6e7lEdT22oXqZ9IsKfmtGBRAnlp8OoTQ2O1w/s1600/book+of+joshua.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="1024" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLddy37fKffnMIAMG7eh71Jqt8nIxDX8yVsLE1SGQiZ2CxB-wyDQTvd4yKpGoZ9baQsVEBsH299HMWdh0YW18ZC8tNA4tr_N5pRz6e7lEdT22oXqZ9IsKfmtGBRAnlp8OoTQ2O1w/s400/book+of+joshua.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is Day 1 of a series of posts for the month of October. I’m joining Kate Motaung over at <a href="http://www.fiveminutefriday.com/" style="color: #4a4a4a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Five Minute Friday </a>for the annual Write 31 Days challenge. I will write about themes found in the book of Joshua each day, with a different word prompt.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Today’s word prompt is WORSHIP.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The book of Joshua has a lot of powerful themes, and one of them for me is centered around what worship means to God himself. But before we get there, let's take a look at what God commands of his people when conquering the cities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>"But you, keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted them you take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction and bring trouble upon it. But all silver and gold, and every vessel of bronze and iron, are holy to the LORD; they shall go into the treasury of the LORD.” (Joshua 6:18-19)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"Devoted things" occurs several times in scripture, referring either something to be totally destroyed, or something for sacred use. In this case, the devoted things were to be set aside to be used in the temple God would have his people build once they conquered all of the Promised Land.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I realized over and over again while studying this book that I have no clue what God's holiness really means. This temple he would eventually have them build would be a permanent fixture for them after years of a mobile temple that was set up over and over again each time the people moved through the desert. The importance of this being a place of worship is significant enough, but think of the power of God's people finally having a permanent place! Worship looked different back then, as there were many ceremonial steps to take before even entered the first part of the temple. Again, because of God's holiness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We don't have those hoops to jump through in our worship. Today I just woke up, got ready and walked into church It was my week to lead worship, so I had my guitar and some extra stuff... but it wasn't quite the ceremony it used to be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am thankful that veil has been torn. That Jesus ripped it open to we can finally have access to God. But may I also learn the significance of preparing my heart for such holiness. This temple God was asking his people to prepare for cannot be understated. This was access he gave his people. To him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The "devoted things" God told his people to set aside was about preparing a place of worship. A holy place. This is just one layer in the complicated nature of God's holiness, one I cannot begin to understand, which seems especially hard for me to grasp because the veil has been torn.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yet his holiness remains.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">May this be the subject of my worship.</span></div>
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stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-58479085257856770472017-09-28T22:51:00.004-05:002017-09-28T22:52:56.567-05:00depend<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b style="background-color: white; color: #373737; font-size: 15px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am linking up for Five Minute Friday a five minute free write with a word prompt each week. Today’s prompt is “Depend.” <a href="http://fiveminutefriday.com/" style="color: #4a4a4a; text-decoration: none;">http://fiveminutefriday.com</a>. </span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuI4JBWUUbuqZMMeq__9ZEm-TsFQmHFWKQ99BEc-I0E4UUbN8lgoPuOax73EQYkDidQr6QbgOlQwJ30GNVvwK0aBJ5ZNBsy84i9mKXwqN_qhw2ZzqaYVh8Icr0kuhe3xPrYeZZrg/s1600/More-FMF-Square-Images-12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuI4JBWUUbuqZMMeq__9ZEm-TsFQmHFWKQ99BEc-I0E4UUbN8lgoPuOax73EQYkDidQr6QbgOlQwJ30GNVvwK0aBJ5ZNBsy84i9mKXwqN_qhw2ZzqaYVh8Icr0kuhe3xPrYeZZrg/s1600/More-FMF-Square-Images-12.jpg" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Being single stinks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I know some people who think we have it so easy without a husband, "you must have so much time". Without kids, "that's why you still look so young for your age" people say.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">They are just pushing the knife deeper in to my wound.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">While those things hurt, I think the hardest one for me is having no one else I can depend on. I learned a long time ago that I had no choice but to depend on myself. So I change my own tires, I hang my own pictures, I put together my own furniture, I pug in my own heavy packages, I take out my own trash. I have to do it all by myself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I don't consider myself a particularly lonely person. I'm introverted, so I don't need people around all that much. Every once and a while, though, I come home after a rough day and really wish I had someone to be with. Someone who would try to fix my problems. Someone to complain to. Someone who would fail to see my expectations, some who would hurt me, someone to be a witness for my life. Someone to depend on. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But I don't. I depend on myself to get things done. To pay the bills. To do the hard stuff. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I just don't buy the stuff that's too heavy to lift.</span><br />
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stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-36736528877746940582017-09-22T14:39:00.001-05:002017-09-22T14:39:12.148-05:00accept<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt10gpbJYBMLvi0PXxG602BRi8C34VVbTLahYm4NwqFD64bzwPny6QhAQwAoipHHmRRXVDsJvDU0YQNkWTQlDgyh_1pprn74dxFaLwFOLFs1S7WhbaKyu96Nj3BZHfutkqBrKnqg/s1600/More-FMF-Square-Images-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt10gpbJYBMLvi0PXxG602BRi8C34VVbTLahYm4NwqFD64bzwPny6QhAQwAoipHHmRRXVDsJvDU0YQNkWTQlDgyh_1pprn74dxFaLwFOLFs1S7WhbaKyu96Nj3BZHfutkqBrKnqg/s1600/More-FMF-Square-Images-11.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I really don't like this word. Noting specifically came to mind about it when I first learned of the prompt. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Well...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">except that I thought "I really don't like this word."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'm not good at accepting what life brings me as enough. I always think, know, believe, wish for more. As if iIwere entitled to more than what I'd been given.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This gets messy, you see, because I don't believe in accepting the status quo. "No acquiescing!" I cry in my heart. We are called to be more! We must push forward.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That also can make me terribly ungrateful for what I've been given.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There is such a tension in this. The already and the not yet. We are called to more - it's part of the molding and shaping into the image of Christ. Yet we aren't there yet and that leaves us discontent. Unsettled. We aren't accepting. Should we?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What are we called to accept? What are we called to love as it is? And what are we called to be unsettled with, to push past? I'm thinking there really isn't a list... as long as the accepting doesn't turn to complacency and the pushing doesn't turn to legalism.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What a tension we are constantly living in. Called to be grateful - simply another form of accepting - yet called to be more. The older I get, the more I see these tensions. The more I am willing to sit in the grey areas of life and just listen. To what I should accept.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'm much more comfortable moving... on what I don't.</span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #373737; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">I am linking up for Five Minute Friday. The FMF is hosted by Kate Motaung on her blog <a href="http://katemotaung.com/" style="color: #4a4a4a; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Heading Home</a>. Today’s prompt is “Accept.” <a href="http://fiveminutefriday.com/" style="color: #4a4a4a; text-decoration-line: none;">http://fiveminutefriday.com</a>. </b>stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-67110133840500803972017-08-11T15:59:00.001-05:002017-08-11T15:59:09.984-05:00finding home<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b style="color: #373737; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start;">I am linking up for Five Minute Friday. The FMF is hosted by Kate Motaung on her blog <a href="http://katemotaung.com/" target="_blank">Heading Home</a>. Today’s prompt is “Place.” <a href="http://fiveminutefriday.com/">http://fiveminutefriday.com</a>. </b></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Nebraska. Kansas. Colorado. Nebraska again. Missouri. Arizona. Kansas again. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">All of these places have good and bad memories attached to them. When a hint of them crosses my mind, sometimes it’s joy and sometimes it’s sorrow. And as with most people, I wanted to find my place at each place.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But I’m not sure I ever have.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I don’t want to go down the road of, “of course I’m the different one” again. I do that far too often in my life. But I have struggled, in each new start, to figure out where I fit in. What I could offer this new place. What it could offer me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I far too often associate a place with doing. When it really should be about being.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">While I still believe that God is ever-changing me, I am still me in each place. I bring a new set of learning as I move on, but I’m still me, carrying around my baggage and my idols and my sin. But also carrying around the triumph and transformational power of Jesus Christ with me. So maybe I’ve been approaching this all wrong.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Maybe going to each new place is more about being than doing. Maybe it’s about finding home within myself, and not finding home in a place.</span></span></div>
stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-91991641797292054242017-08-03T19:35:00.001-05:002017-08-03T19:39:41.533-05:00of dreaming and marching<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The fact is, I don’t really consider myself a writer, though I do occasionally call myself that. There is a tension in “being” a writer and just being someone who writes, I guess. We started out the retreat with the question of, “Am I called to write?” And for some many of the women there, they are called to do this. They can’t imagine NOT writing. I guess I feel that way, too. But I also don’t have that drive… that call to the pen and paper. My call is different. Writing may be part of my call, but I don’t think it’s primarily my call.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I wanted to come to the retreat because I’ve been struggling with only feeling inspired to write when things are hard. My inspiration tends to come from emotional pain, which I haven’t had a lot of recently. So I wanted to see what the answer to that might be… what it looks like to write in all circumstances. So my reflection during the weekend really centered around this. But then Friday night, Christina read a poem to us that led me to a really big question.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I asked myself this.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dreaming always seemed silly. Unimportant. Unnecessary. Something that couldn’t pay the bills. Now that I’m old, dreams seem even more illusive.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But do they have to be?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">More will come on this topic, because it’s far too important to my heart right now as I consider how writing fits into my call. There will likely be multiple posts about this big question. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But this point is about my weekend with beautiful women who left me thankful for God’s design. How he makes everyone different and beautiful and in his image. This weekend was about how he gives each one of us a heart for something: Native Americans, publishing a book, changing the barrio in which one lives, writing poetry, worship, the beauty of grace, traveling around to stay with strangers we’ve only met online. We heard stories of walking knee deep in water in the dark, the pain of losing someone we love, the 10 hour journeys to arrive when it seems impossible to get away from life and family and work.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I was quiet this weekend. Which is somewhat unlike me. In group situations I find myself being the clown... the sarcastic one ready to create the giggles. But not this time I listened. A lot. And I wanted to listen more. I want more and more of their hearts to pour into mine as I learned what God has called them to. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I’m sure we all are somewhat uncertain of God’s call in our lives, except perhaps the call to love one another. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Which is what I felt march first out of each women’s heart this weekend. Love. Love marched first, to create a place where hugs and tears were ok with someone we just met 2 hours earlier. Love marched first when we all weren’t sure what God was going to do. Love marched first when we shared what we wrote Friday night. Love marched first when we sang songs and asked questions and dreamed together.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">May love continue to march first out of our hearts.</span></span></div>
stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-81116622406661018082017-07-27T22:30:00.000-05:002017-07-27T22:35:18.416-05:00inspire<br />
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I feel my heart bursting out of my chest and suddenly I cannot stop myself. The words pour out of me,racing from my brain to my heart to the fingers and onto my computer and </div>
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It's like I just threw up.</div>
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I long for those burstings. Those moments I just cannot contains and words are so important, feelings too explosive, and meaning too valuable to stay inside me. To be inspired is far too often a rare thing for me, to be inspiring is what I long for all day long. </div>
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For inspiration to hit... for it to fall through me like a rock falling off a 20 story building... it can be unstoppable.</div>
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Which also means it can hurt.</div>
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I've had moments where my words are pain to others. Nights where my heart has rushed out onto my computer screen and the next thing I know, I've undone a friendship. </div>
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Where is the line between letting my words speak the truth and keeping those words contained? Where is that place where I can be certain that this inspiration is something that must come out... but won't offend?</div>
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Does such a place of inspiring exist?<br />
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This post is part of <a href="http://www.fiveminutefriday.com/" target="_blank">Five Minute Friday</a>, a link up of posts doing a five minute fee write on a prompt word. This week's word is "inspire".</div>
stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-79346332157442955632017-07-20T23:06:00.005-05:002017-07-21T11:52:31.693-05:00collect<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b style="color: #373737; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start;">I am linking up for Five Minute Friday. The FMF is hosted by Kate Motaung on her blog Heading Home. Today’s prompt is “Collect.” We’d love to have you join us on Thursday nights for our Twitter party. Don’t forget to check out FMF’s new home at http://fiveminutefriday.com. </b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Today was a weird day. I was overly emotional for just about everything - stuff I was working on, things I read on the internet, music I listened to. These over the top emotions were connected to memories. They brought about feelings of regret, loss, pain, sadness... connected to people, places, situations...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Memories are merely collections. They can function as the graveyard for our souls, or the scrapbook of our hearts. Most of the time it's both. Our collection of memories can send us into a tailspin of regret or take us to a place of love and a sense of belonging.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I would love to figure out how to un-collect those memories that bring those feelings of regret and loss and pain. With all the things I collect in my life (books, scarves, kate spade bags...) it's the one collection I'm less than proud of. (My kate spade collection is a distant second.) Because these are collections that cause me to face my own sin and the sin others have put upon me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Collections are intended to being us a sense of joy or comfort, usually. I have a friend with a collection of Starbucks from every city she's been to. Another who collects ceramic frogs (I try not to judge her for that one), and a friend who always buys a refrigerator magnet when she goes on vacation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've tried those different kind of collections. I've never been able to really stick to one. I have a few magnets from places I've been but my refrigerator looks like a half-hearted attempt at my travel log. And don't even get me started on my coffee mugs. That's a story in and of itself. And the frogs... well, thankfully I never tried that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I'm not good at collecting those physical things that are meant to bring us joy when we look at them. Instead I collect the memories from my past, buried in a dusty corner of my heart that gets swept out once and a while when a email triggers me or a song reminds me of someone I used to love. Or someone who used to love me.</span></div>
stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17391211.post-60518270149659023102017-07-18T10:18:00.001-05:002017-07-18T15:38:33.616-05:00the road to authenticity?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There's been a trend in the last few years talking a lot about the importance of authenticity. Which, of course, is nothing new. Churches have been having conversations about authenticity for the last 10 years at least, seeing that the new generation of adults attending church were turned off by big concerts and light shows that became so popular in the 90s. Brené Brown brought forth to us what living in shame does for our souls, and the culture around us continues to tell us to simply "be who we are, no matter what anyone else says".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There are good things in this authenticity. For myself, it fed a certain part of my personality in some unhealthy ways. Earlier this year, I took a class where learning my Enneagram type was part of the experience. After I learned my type (I'm a 4) and meeting with a counselor about my test results for that and other personality tests we took, I was broken. The other tests I'd taken were nothing new to me, but learning about how a type 4 views the world and themselves broke me in a way I'm still not sure I can explain or understand.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've learned to be careful about personality test results over the years. They can become a crutch and an easy way for me to explain away my own sin. "That's how I was wired..." is something I've thought to myself a lot while justifying my behavior. The power of learning my Enneagram type has been that it immediately showed me my struggles and my sin. It was powerful. As an already broken by sin person, I was even more broken by the ways I've seen myself use my tendency to "be different" (classic type 4 behavior) in a multitude of sinful ways. As Richard Clark, online editor at Christianity Today and podcast host of <i>The Calling</i>, explains it, "It's a lot like finding out you're an INFJ except there is... an added self awareness component that comes with some negative feelings."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">He goes on to explain that the negative feelings that come with learning your Enneagram type can be valuable and represent growth. Which I've found to be completely true. Since learning my MBTI type (INFJ) it's merely served as a way to help me process how awesome I am. But the Enneagram has showed me my major areas of needed growth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've not talked too much about my Enneagram type with those I love and trust, certainly not in the same way I used to proudly proclaim my status as an INFJ. Some of that could be that I haven't researched it the way I have my MBTI type. The other reason is likely in how it has convicted me. The root of my sin in being a type 4 is intense. It's not something I want to proudly proclaim.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So what does this have to do with authenticity? Apparently 4s hold authenticity up as some kind of crown jewel in life. For me, it means I do strive for authenticity in relationships and in how I resent myself to the world. But the sinful way it plays out is I tend to sniff out those who are inauthentic and place my judgmental medal of honor on them. Being a type where introspection is a hourly event, I have no reason to expect people to know themselves as well as I know myself. When you know yourself well, you can be more authentic (and even comfortable) with others. As a 4, I tend to dismiss those who haven't </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">done the same amount of internal work as me, judging them as emotionally immature and even lazy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The tension in all of this is that we all want to <i>be who we are</i>, right? Even deeper than that, we want to be <i>accepted </i>for who we are. The world is constantly telling us to "just do you." There is a measure of wisdom in this. But I don't think that's enough. The Enneagram showed me that by fully indulging who I am leads to deeply flawed and sinful behavior towards others and myself. There are good and healthy ways for me to "just do me" but that's not the end of the story.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">God loves us for who he made us to be, but he loves us too much to keep us there. We are called to be sanctified, made like Christ, despite our sinful nature. (Because he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it...)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.</i> (Romans 12:2)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Authenticity is not the end of the road in our journey to be ourselves. It's part of the journey, but it's not the destination. It's easier, sure. Which is why we all want to go there first and call it a day. But to deprive ourselves of who we can be by settling for who we are now is simply an adventure in missing the point.</span></div>
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stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14760765831975016535noreply@blogger.com0