I recently spent two weeks in Uganda, Africa on a mission trip. Being my third trip to Africa, I have seen more poverty than I imagined existed in this century. I have watched women bake rolls in an underground oven lined with handmade bricks. I have also had the humbling privilege of helping place brand new Bibles in the hands of nearly 200 Africans. Before we gifted the Bibles during my latest trip, my team leader asked if any of them already had a Bible of their own and, out of forty kids, only two raised their hand. When they bowed to thank us, their knees nearly touched the ground.

Humbled. Privileged. Blessed.

These words have shaped my life since my first trip to Africa. My heart aches and my eyes burn with tears even as I write this. Even so, pity is not in their vocabulary. They are a strong, beautiful people who trust the Lord to provide for their needs even in the midst of their trials and hardships, like maybe getting one meal a day. They believe fully in God’s faithfulness even as they watch their parents, siblings, and friends die of AIDS and other diseases. God has shown me many new facets of His love through these orphans. They have shown me how to love freely and unconditionally under the conditions of losing loved ones and suffering from many broken hearts. These children hold nothing back from each other. They share every material possession that they have to the point that you truly do not know to whom it belongs. They surround each other in such a way that you would think they are all brothers and sisters.

Loving Hearts

Something the Lord revealed to me through their love for each other is how much more closed off I become to people with each scar a person leaves on my heart. I quit giving freely because I want to protect myself. These orphans expect to lose the people they love but I have never seen it hinder the way they surround each other and continue to give freely from their heart in spite of the hurt to come. The Lord has been whispering to my soul, “I am your strength and defense (Psalm 118:14). You have nothing to fear (John 14:27) for fear cannot coexist with love (1John 4:18). Now give My love freely (Matt. 10:18).” This calls for a complete shift in my own actions as Jesus said His disciples would be known by love. And Jesus’ example of love was not cheap or convenient; it was costly and sacrificial.

During my time in Uganda this past August, the Lord showed me how He is a Father to the fatherless and His heart is for such as these. Satan, from the very beginning, has been trying to destroy God’s family, and he’s trying especially hard with the AIDs pandemic in Africa. Praise God that the story doesn’t end there, though, and we have hope for us and hope to offer the orphans. God has defeated Satan and is gathering His family together as a mother hen gathers her chicks. John 14:18 says, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”

God’s Heartbeat

There is so much that God revealed to me during those weeks about myself, about people, and about my passion for Africa but I consider the most precious what He revealed about Himself. The first morning in Uganda, He gave me an image of me sitting in His lap with my head against His chest, listening to His heartbeat. Generally we, as people, don’t lay our heads on just any random chest but only on the chest of someone we love and feel deeply connected to and intimate with. I knew He was telling me that, unless I was that close to Him, I would never hear His heartbeat. It is not until we’re able to hear His heartbeat that we’ll know what it beats FOR. Since then, I’ve also realized He’s trying to give me a heart transplant. It is an incredibly painful process that requires sacrifice and denial of self but a beautiful, genuine love is the outcome that can only take root in the fertile soil of God’s heart in me. This is only the beginning of a lifelong process, but I will consider the goal attained if He never stops breaking me apart and transforming me to be more like Him in all things. For it is in the places I feel the most broken apart that I feel the most alive in Him.

Rivers of Life

Our heavenly Father yearns for us to curl up in His lap and listen to His heartbeat. He has made us to be bearers of His love and Jeremiah 31:3 says He has drawn us with love, and He wants to continue to bring us to Him through each other. There is a dried up riverbed inside of many of us because we have built a dam, hindering the water flow. At our request, the Lord is prepared to demolish the dam and allow His waters of love to gush forth, up and out of us. He then nourishes our heart with His love; it flows freely into us and freely out as we begin to feel His heart beat. We have the humbling privilege and blessing of knowing what His heart beats for; we need only to start asking and listening.

Today’s guest post was written by Kelsey Williams, a college student studying nursing. She says, “The Lord has laid it on my heart to bring nursing skills into international missions and words cannot describe how passionate I have become about this calling on my life. In the mean time, I enjoy getting to know new people and letting them know how dearly they are loved by their Father in heaven. I also enjoy talking to people about my experiences in Africa and recruiting them to come with me.”

“The Lord says, ‘I will guide you along the best pathway for your life, I will advise you and watch over you.’” Psalm 32:8NLT

 Learning that God had a plan for my life was a relief to me.

I hadn’t done such a good job at it myself, making mistakes along the way, living in fear that I’d never get it right. I soon discovered, however, that knowing He had a plan and following it were two different things. I still felt like something was missing. And it was.

~

When I was 18, I had the delight of traveling to Germany after high school graduation to meet my relatives. My German grandparents also happened to be there at the same time, returning for a trip to visit the “old country” and their families they had left many years before. At the end of my visit, I was packing when Grandpa slipped a few pouches in my suitcase.

“I don’t think I’ll have room for these when we leave next week, Janie,” he said as he stuffed them in my suitcase. My cousin Max loaded my suitcase in the car as I searched the house for any forgotten items. At the airport, I waved good-bye to family and grabbed my suitcase to head through the Frankfurt airport. I could barely budge the thing. “What happened to this?!” I thought to myself. I suddenly recalled the bags Grandpa shoved in there, wondering what could possibly be in them.

I dragged that suitcase what seemed like miles to my gate, so encumbered by the weight of it that I wasn’t certain I would make it, arms and back aching. I was never so glad to unload something as I was that suitcase at the baggage check.

Extra Baggage

When I got home, I found the bags Grandpa had glibly tossed in. I peeked inside one of them. BB pellets! Each bag was brimming with BB pellets, weighing about 5 pounds. Ugh. My ultra-frugal grandfather had found a deal on pellets, and I had just lugged them halfway around the world for him.

After spending the previous day dragging around my suitcase, I had learned the lesson of traveling lightly. But it wasn’t until many years later that I realized this truth applies to much more than our physical travels. Thomas A Kempis said, “They travel lightly whom God’s grace carries.” I spent too many years of my young adulthood dragging around 30 pounds of my “BB pellet” past. God was guiding me along the best pathway for my life, but I was so bogged down by my past that I was just inching along.

Finally, the Holy Spirit taught me that I was missing grace — the grace that rids us of what has come before, freeing us for what is now. I already had the grace that forgives all my sins at the cross of Jesus. But I needed to learn how to accept grace for the journey that each day brings, realizing that each day I can choose to walk in that grace and live it. I learned that traveling lightly means I live with open hands that are not full with holding on to the past but are empty, waiting to grasp what God has for me today, now.

And it makes all the difference: Grace means I can dump the baggage of my past, free to run the path God has laid before me. Free to relish His plans. Free to join in His work.

If you’re still towing around your past, it’s time to permanently check it at God’s baggage counter and run with Him down the pathway of grace called Your Life.

Has grace made a difference in your life? Please feel free to share your experience below.

Pray on!

“Image courtesy of iconmac / FreeDigitalPhotos.net”.
“Image courtesy of Keattikorn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net”.

Do not remember the rebellious sins of my youth. Remember me in the light of your unfailing love, for you are merciful, O Lord.  Psalm 25:7 NLT

These words resonated with me a few mornings ago as I was reading them. I had to stop and go over verse 7 a few times to let it sink in deeply.

You see, for years I struggled with seeing myself as the same girl I was during high school, college, and my young adult years. Even though I was changing, moving on, and growing in my faith, when I thought about myself, the image of who I was in those teen and early 20s seemed to haunt me. While spiritually I was growing, my mindset was not letting me fully embrace those changes and was holding me back. It took me years to let go of this faulty thinking.

I hope this verse will convince you to not wait as long as I did, because … verse 7 is a life changer. Perhaps I can explain it this way.

Photographers will often set the F-stop of their camera to a low number for artistic effect. It brings the desired object into sharp focus but everything in the background becomes a fuzzy blur, like in the picture of the brown-eyed Susan you see here.  And you know what, that’s exactly what God does when He looks at each one of us. He sets our F-stop to a low number! Who we are now in Jesus, as one of His beloved children is in sharp focus.Those things we did in the past? Well, to God they’re a blurry blip in the background of our lives. Yes, we may still suffer some consequences from those choices and decisions, but Jesus has removed the stigma from them. When we trust Him to forgive our sins, God now sees us in the light of His unfailing love.

It’s time to move on from old, dead thinking. If you’ve confessed your sins and placed your trust in Jesus to bear the penalty of your sins, then God isn’t the one holding you back. You are. When God looks at you, He doesn’t see the junk in the background of your past. He sees His lovely child standing in front of Him in clear detail. Bask in His love and light today as the person you are now.

Feel free to share your thoughts below, or you can also contact me.

Pray on!

Jane VanOsdol’s work has appeared in Pockets, Small Farmer’s Journal, Woman’s Day, Warner Press publications and numerous online publications. Jane and her sister Mary Kane are the authors of OnlyByPrayer.com and speak together at women’s retreats and seminars. She loves gardening, knitting, reading, biking, and gluten-free goodies. Jane is married to Mark and has a son, daughter, and a son-in-law.

In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation. Psalm 5:3

When I take the time to talk to God in the morning and read His word, it makes all the difference in my attitude and heart.

I am at peace.

One of the other Bible versions uses the words “and I look up” instead of “wait in expectation.” This photo taken in my yard this morning is a reminder to me to do just that.

The cardinal creeper is climbing up reaching for the sun. I need to reach for the Son every morning too.

“He that dwells with God in Christ Jesus is the man whose steps are enlarged in intercession.” Charles H. Spurgeon.

I came across this sentence in the book A 12-Month Guide to Better Prayer. I’ve started working through this book/study, and am currently in Chapter 2, which emphasizes how important it is to your prayer life to abide or remain in Christ. I’m intrigued by that term and have been praying about how I might do this. The term abiding comes from the Greek word meno, which can mean “to sojourn, tarry, not to depart, to continue, to be present.” All of these things take time, don’t they?

Now, I’m a big believer in “arrow” prayers. I generally pray throughout my day as the Holy Spirit brings people and causes to my heart. But I’m being convicted of the importance of spending time with Jesus each day whenI am silent, just listening to Him and waiting on Him. This takes time—time that I don’t always get up early enough to spend.

I usually read my Bible and pray from my prayer list in the morning, but contemplative waiting and listening often get short shrift in my rush to get out the door to work. But if I want to be effective in my prayers, then I need to take the time to hear from the heart of the One who answers prayers. After all, bearing fruit—including fruitful prayers—involves being grafted into the vine.

So, one of my resolutions this year is to take at least 10 minutes each day before I begin praying to be quiet before the Lord and then see how that affects my prayers. Maybe I’ll be directed to pray in a certain way. Perhaps He’ll bring people to mind that hadn’t been on my radar. Or maybe, I’ll just be mindful of the silence. Either way, I’m looking forward to seeing how this time will change my prayers and me. I’ll keep you updated.

How about you? How are you going to “enlarge your steps in intercession” this year? Are you going to change anything related to your prayer life in 2013? If you’d like, you can share your ideas below.

Blessings for the New Year and pray on!

A 12-Month Guide to Better Prayer, published by Barbour Publishing, Inc. Used by permission.

Image courtesy of [David Castillo Dominici] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Those who go down to the sea in ships, who do business on great waters,

They see the works of the LORD, and His wonders in the deep.

For he commands and raises the stormy wind, which lifts up the waves of the sea.

They mount up to the heavens, they go down again to the depths;

Their soul melts because of trouble.

They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.

Then they cry out to the LORD in their trouble, and He brings them out of their distresses.

He calms the storm, so that its waves are still.

Then they are glad because they are quiet;

So he guides them to their desired haven.

Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!

Let them exalt him also in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the company of the elders.

Psalm 107:23-32 NKJ

I took this picture while watching storm clouds disperse from the early morning sky in St. Augustine. I love the picture the psalmist paints of God calming the storm so that its waves are still and then guiding His people to a desired haven.

What storms do you have in your life today? Ask God to provide a safe haven for you to rest in.