Jane VanOsdol

Last time we looked at how Jesus was able to maintain peace in His life and found out that prayer played a big part in His serenity. What I would like to look at today is how we can do that same thing in our own lives. Some of you may be thinking that if I only knew what situation you were facing right now, that I wouldn’t be so quick to talk about being peaceful.

Let me say, I hear you! I have been through a few tragedies in my life, and I know how desperation and despair feels. But, I have also seen my Lord move into each situation and restore hope in my life where it had previously been dead. What we need to focus on is not the situation, but the only One on heaven and earth who has the power to bring life out of dead things and peace out of chaos:  Jesus.

First of all, let me ask you, What situation do you need peace in right now? Let’s just start with the hardest thing and get it out in the open. Maybe you’re even afraid to mention it to your friends or family anymore because it has dragged on for so long, or maybe it’s a fresh worry. But acknowledge to yourself what it is. May I also suggest an activity for you?

I would like to suggest that you write down what it is that you need peace about in a notebook. Write down everything about it and your prayers for the situation. Ask God to give you a specific scripture(s) to pray for the situation and invite Him to begin working. Then try to rest in that. Continue to write and journal and pray about the situation and record how you see God working. It may be that over time you see a person you have been praying for changed. Or, it may be that it is YOU that God changes instead. It may be that an ill person you want healed for earth instead dies and is healed to heaven. If that is the case, continue to record how God is moving in the midst of that tragedy in your life. Over time, you will begin to see patterns of God living and working in your life.

Often times just the actual writing down can help bring us a peace, but the real peace comes from understanding this scripture:  And we know that all things work together for good to those who are the called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)

In the times when our prayers are not answered the way we want them to be, when the sick are not healed, or when the job does not come through for example, this does not make this any less of an answer; it is just a different answer. I begin to cultivate peace in these situations when I cling to God’s promise that He will work together to bring good out of this desperate situation. Be persistent in prayer and know that you have God’s word that He will bring good. Be waiting and watchful and record the good when you see it.

It also helps to keep the big picture in mind. Encouraging to me is the meaning of the word peace from John 14:27. The Blue Letter Bible defines peace in one instance as ” the tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and content with its earthly lot, of whatsoever that is.” When we know that our big picture is taken care of, other things tend to pale in comparison.

Cultivating a life of prayer and peace is only attained through persistence. God does not minimize our earthly trials. He walks and prays us through them.

Pray on!

Jane VanOsdol

In today’s episode, Jane chats with author and speaker Ann Kroeker about her latest book Not So Fast:  Slow-Down Solutions for Frenzied Families. Ann offers great tips for families who want to learn to live a slower-paced lifestyle to savor time with each other and God. You can find Ann at https://annkroeker.wordpress.com. Click below to listen to the podcast now or download it to listen later.

Ann Kroeker

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This month we are looking at God as our Jehovah Shalom, the Lord our Peace. Peace is a promise that Jesus gives to his followers.

“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” John 14:27

When we need an example of someone who demonstrated peace in the midst of chaotic circumstances, we need only look to Jesus.

In Mark 4, He and the disciples were in a boat when a storm blew up and waves engulfed the boat. Jesus was asleep in the boat and the disciples frantically woke him up. Jesus’ words to the wind and the seas were “Peace be still” (Mark 4:39).

In the middle of a hungry crowd of 5,000 people the disciples wanted to send everyone away because they had no idea how they were going to feed all those people. Jesus, however, instructed them to feed the people. I can imagine the disciples’ incredulous looks, because I am sure I would have been doing the same thing myself. I know how I worry over whether I have enough food to feed my guests at Thanksgiving, let alone 5,000 uninvited guests! Jesus told them to take stock on what they did have, then blessed it and kept passing it around.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was deeply distressed. Yet, he had the presence of mind to maintain His composure when the guards came to arrest Him and even healed the high priest’s servant after Peter cut his ear off (Luke 22:51).

We need to ask the question, What was the source of Jesus’ peace?

I think that many of us naturally would say that of course Jesus would have this peace because He was God. But, we also need to remember that He was fully man, too, and had to experience life as a man.

I believe Jesus’ peace was because of one main thing:  prayer.

All throughout the scriptures, Jesus took time to get away from the crowds of people to go to pray. Mark 6:46 is one example. “And when He had sent them away, He departed to the mountain to pray.” This was just after the feeding of the five thousand. Praying to His Father kept Jesus calm and in unity with God’s plans. It also gave Him security. Jesus knew where He came from and where He was going.

This begs the question, Do you know where you came from and where you are going?

Is your identity tied up in Christ? Do you have the assurance that He has got your past sins and mistakes covered and that You belong to Him? When we have that settled in our lives, when we have asked Christ to forgive us of our sins and to take control of our lives, it gives us the assurance we need to face the future with confidence that God has our backs. No matter what we face, He is there with us.

Tomorrow we are going to further explore how prayer and peace are tied up together in our lives. Until then, pray on!

Jane VanOsdol

Have you ever felt stuck in a pattern in your life? Maybe it’s an attitude or a habit that has become a stumbling block to you. Well, I know how that is because I’m there myself right now. It can be discouraging to be stuck in the middle of something you know God is calling you out on. You want to change it right NOW, but still find yourself stuck. So, what do we do?

With me, it started a few weeks ago. I went to a morning retreat at my church called Unplugged. It was held at a local retreat center. It was all about getting away from your routine and getting quiet before God. I was looking forward to this time and went with a few ideas of what I wanted to focus on and pray about. I soon found out that God had other ideas.

After the initial time together, we broke from the group, and I found a quiet place to sit before God. Before I had much of a chance to start in on MY prayers, a word kept popping into my head and that word was joy. I tried to ignore that word, but it kept popping back into my mind and wouldn’t leave me alone. I finally surrendered my agenda to God’s and turned my focus to figuring out what God wanted me to learn. Actually, it was kind of in the back of my mind already anyway. Not joy, but the opposite of it. For about a 1 1/2 years, I’ve been dealing with a health issue of vertigo.  While it’s not life threatening, it makes me very sick when it hits me, and I am unable to function for about a day.

What God is showing me is that I am also letting this illness rob me of my joy. I didn’t really want to face this, but God was telling me it was time to deal with it. It wasn’t like the kind of sadness that hits you hard when a loved one dies suddenly or a catastrophe of another kind hits; rather, my joy was being snuffed out a little at a time, almost without me realizing it.

God led me to a verse that morning:  “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Psalm 16:11.

Prayer Labyrinth at Fatima Retreat Center in Indy

I realized God didn’t say “In perfect health is fullness of joy.” He said “In My presence is fullness of joy.” One of the things that I took away from that retreat was that I need to pray for my attitude so that I will learn what it means to be joyful even when dealing with a difficult situation.

I am not there yet, but I am letting God teach me how to do this. I hope this encourages you if you find yourself in the middle of a difficult situation or time in your life.  Ask God to show you how to respond to it and what you need to learn from it. I’m right there with you.

Pray on!

One of the constants in my life over the last two years has been change! That may sound a little funny, but I’ve had changes in my job, my health, my calling and my kids. Each one of these things by themselves is enough to shake you up a bit, but when they all happen relatively close together, it really gets your attention!

About two years ago, I decided to stop teaching at the Christian school that I had been at for eight years and decided to pursue my dream of developing a freelance writing career. I had been praying about it for awhile and by the fall of 2008 the timing seemed right, so I made the plunge. It’s been an interesting time of developing clients and finding projects, and I love it, but it did cause me to make some adjustments.

First of all, I’m the type of personality that doesn’t always take to change happily. My identity was tied up in the school and my position there and the people I knew and in my students. Losing all that was harder than I thought it would be. That was compounded by a change in my health at the same time. I began having frequent bouts of vertigo, which often left me sick and not comfortable leaving my house. So I went from a busy, bustling school as my daily routine to a quiet, empty house.

I struggled with discouragement because of being sick, but God had something in mind with all that time I spent resting. At that time He was also putting in my heart a desire to start a blog about prayer. So for that year, I spent a lot of time reading and studying about blogging and podcasting and researching what resources I would need to do all this. It was a tough year, but God was busy laying the groundwork for future plans.

The BIble verse that became my theme for that year was the following:

“Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.” Psalm 37:7a.

Now, I was impatient and just wanted to feel better and get on with things, but I had to learn to WAIT. I had no choice.

During this time, my kids were also going through many changes. My daughter finished college, moved back home for the summer, moved to Argentina for four months and is now back home again starting a job. My son is doing the opposite. He is graduating high school in two months and leaving for a 15 month auto mechanic training program this summer. Kids coming and going, in and out of the house, quiet and chaos. I can sense it’s the end of child rearing and the beginning of new relationships with them.

So, how do we handle all these changes that come into our lives–some from our own decisions, some from Life? It always helps to talk them over with a friend, a spouse,or a parent who has been through it before. I’ve also found that wrestling through them in prayer is the best way for me to handle them. I say wrestling because it ususally is not a quick solution, but a repeated bringing them before the Lord, seeking His will and His solutions and His plans. I like to write this all down in a journal, so I can add any insights the Holy Spirit gives me as I pray through these things. Then as answers start to come, I combine the praying and waiting with action as God shows me what to do.

try journaling your prayers

Over the years, I have learned more of what it means to wait on the Lord when I sense He is calling me to make changes. Mostly I have learned this from my own painful blunders of charging ahead and then having to undo my mistakes because I acted too soon or took on too much and made a mess of things.

What kind of changes is God calling you to make right now? Where are you in the process? LIstening to Him? Not wanting to change the status quo? If you feel like it, share a little bit about your “winds of change.” And, of course, pray on!

Rest in His Love

by

Jane VanOsdol

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

~

It had been a rough week. Friday rolled around and I could feel the exhaustion of a week settle in on me. My time had been filled with homeschooling the kids, cooking, keeping up with loads of laundry, teaching at the co-op and preparing my lesson for my Sunday School class. I still had to pack all of our clothes for a weekend trip to visit family. As the afternoon wore on, I felt progressively worse and a fever and chills set in. It quickly became apparent that I wasn’t going anywhere.

My husband decided to still take the kids to see their grandparents so that I could stay home and rest. As my family was heading out the door, my six-year-old son came over to me with his sad face on and hugged me. “Mommy, I feel bad you’re gonna be here all by yourself. Won’t you be lonely?” he asked me. I assured Jesse I would be fine, actually feeling a little guilty over how excited I was becoming at having a whole weekend with nobody that I had to take care of but myself. It had been years since I’d spent a weekend by myself.

The door closed behind them and I heaved a sigh of relief. Silence. Now what to do? I decided before I felt any worse that I would make a quick trip out to grab a few library books by my favorite author and some soup from the deli so I didn’t have to cook.

I drug myself out the door and was back in an hour. Popping some Tylenol, I settled onto the couch with my blanket, pillows, pile of books and turned on the classical radio station. Bliss. I spent the entire weekend holed up in my house reading, listening to music, sleeping and praying.

Even though I was sick, it occurred to me that perhaps this weekend was a much needed gift from God–a respite from my constant responsibilities. I allowed myself to slow down, to actually do n-o-t-h-i-n-g at all. I found that it was easier to focus on God because I was not distracted and busy. I felt surrounded by His love. I felt peace. I felt my burdens fade away. I experienced the Matthew 11 verses as I hadn’t in a long time.

It’s been 12 years since that weekend, but I still remember it and how God used it to recharge one tired, worn-out mamma and wife. As I am now going through another busy stage in my life, I am trying to learn how to rest in God’s love on a daily basis. What does that look like? For me, part of it means slowing down long enough so that I can enjoy God’s presence and give Him my full attention. I try to do that in the morning before I start my day. For me it also means taking a walk in a park or the woods. The quiet and the beauty of my surroundings seems to help me focus on God.  Unless I do these things, I can’t hear Him or notice what He wants to teach me because my mind is too full with my own thoughts. Maybe you struggle with that too. Not much in our society encourages us to slow down, to cultivate quiet, to seek God. It’s time to change that.

As we go through the month of February, let’s practice resting in God’s love and letting Him refresh us from the burdens we carry every day. This may look a little different for each of us. That’s not important. What is important, is that we try to carve out some time to rest in Him and to listen to Him. Let’s pray for each other to find this time.

Prayer:  Thank you Lord, that You give us rest for our souls. May we find and take the time to seek You out and just be … with You. Amen.

Copyright 2010 Jane VanOsdol All Rights Reserved