I love them!

I am on a trail of epic proportions! Thanks to Pastor Arte I find myself back in the book of Joshua! I love the Old Testament with its incredible stories and awesome, often beautifully graphic descriptions. As one who loves to read and who can easily visualize what I read, the old testament is one that keeps drawing me back, time and again.  I see so much redemption, so much deliverance and so many amazing and wonderful times when God was merciful when mercy wasn't deserved.  The book of Joshua is one of my favorites and I have read it many times...my other ones? Ruth and Esther.  LOVE THEM!  Anyway... I am finding some amazing nuggets in this book that I haven't seen before, or am seeing again.  It is awesome! I started doing some research, well more research, on some parts of the book and of some of the people in it.  Have you ever read a book or story in the OT and put yourself in that persons place?  Have you ever read Esther and FELT yourself standing before the King, needing to make a request that could possibly end with the chopping off of your head?  Have you read about Ruth and Naomi and seen yourself in their place, without provision, without a home, wondering why (in your own doubting mind) God has done this to you?  Only to see Him provide in such a way as to completely blow your socks off?  I sure have. I identify with Ruth, Naomi, Esther, Rahab and many other women in the bible.  I have felt like them so many times and they all feel like sisters to me.  I cannot wait to meet them in heaven.  

The other night I was experiencing a Naomi moment.  In the book of Ruth, Naomi declares, basically, that the Lord is punishing her, she felt abandoned by Him because she had not only lost her husband but both of her sons and had no one to carry on the family name (a big deal in those days).  Ruth sticks with her, taking on a new nationality and family, religion and belief system, out of love for this woman, her mother in law.  I get the way Naomi was feeling.  No, I haven't lost my children or my husband, but Naomi had a false belief system that said, because things didn't turn out the way I thought they would, God must not love me, He must be mad at me.  Boy do I understand that mindset, that lie.  Its sad to think that we KNOW the truth, in our minds at least, but KNOWING it in our hearts and following it is another story altogether.  My sister Connie told me that her granddaughter Myla told her that God lived inside of her...Connie said, yes, He's in your heart, and Myla, in her childlike wisdom said, "no Mimi, He's in my forehead!"  Oh the amazing brilliance of that statement!  We so often keep Jesus in our FOREHEAD and forget to let Him see our HEART!  How simple and yet so difficult sometimes because the lies that we came to believe about ourselves, our value, our very lives, can be so powerfully overwhelming and so damaging.  I am here to tell ya, I have some doozies and I get so frustrated with myself in this battle to overcome the lies that I grew up with.  It must have felt that way for Naomi don't you think?  

I am so grateful for a loving God, for our Saviour...as I stood in the dark, looking up at the moon and the stars, I had a moment of honesty with the Lord. "I don't know if I believe this stuff Lord." and I heard, "Its okay, I still believe in you".......Our God is capable of handling our fears, our doubts, our unbelief, our insecurities, our childhood lies, our shame, our disappointments, our mishandling of our own mistakes, our....I will let you fill in the blanks, but He is capable.  If He can take a woman with such bitterness and doubt as Naomi and turn her life around to be in abundant blessing and observer of the miracle of new life and new birth, then He can certainly do something with our lives.  

Bless your day.