The Prodigal Son

The Prodigal Son by Rembrandt 

Ever felt like you have just done too much for the LORD to love you or accept you? Or have you ever felt like if people really new the bitterness or jealousy in your heart they would not accept you? Well, today's Bible story is a parable Jesus told to illustrate how deep and far the Father's love is for us!

The Prodigal Son

Was Naaman Only Healed of Leprosy?

Some of the best stories have role reversals. 2 Kings 5 is always labeled: Naaman Healed of Leprosy. I get it that this story has a crazy miracle in it. But, I feel there is a deeper lesson.

1. Naaman is the servant of the king that worships false gods and is out to destroy the people of God. He is a commander in a big position. Well respected, but has leprosy (a skin disease).

2. Gehazi is the servant of the messenger of God, Elisha. Elisha serves the One True God, the Almighty. 

3. The king if Syria sent his commander to the king of Israel to be healed because they received word through a captive servant girl from Israel that the prophet of God from her home could heal Namaan. He sends an over the top generous offering so his commander can be healed.

4. The king of Israel freaks out. He thinks it's a trap. He should seek God. He is God's king after all. But nope. He just flips forgetting who he serves.

5. Naaman is healed. You will have to read about his own lesson on doing that which is simple even if it doesn't make sense. Oh, and he listened again to his servants when they gave advice. We see a pattern of humility and teachability in this.

6. Elisha doesn't show himself for the healing. His presence woukd cause Naaman to possibly worship him. But by not showing up and just letting Naaman walk by faith. It reveals that the God of Israel is the Most High God who can do the miraculous in dirty water.

7. Gehazi is upset that Elisha healed Naaman and took nothing. So he plots to deceive and fulfill his greed.

8. Naaman gives generously and Gehazi goes home to hide it.

9. Elisha confronts Gehazi because God revealed to him what he did. He gave Gehazi a chance to tell the truth. Gehazi lied again. In the great role reversals, the servant of the Most High God's prophet walks away with leprosy and the servant of the enemy king walks away healed worshipping the One True God. 

10. But the lesson that blessed me the most. Elisha told Naaman that when he had to bow while serving alongside the king to the false god to be at peace. Naaman was afraid of offending the Most High God. Ponder that for a moment. It isn't about your position. It is all about your heart.

Why? Because the Most High God knows the heart of men. Culture may make you go on bended knee and think it a sign of worship. But the Most High God knows when a heart is bent toward Him or a false god made of stone or even the false god of greed in wanting possessions. 

Go read the story. It is crazy amazing. So many powerful lessons.

Which one speaks most to you today?

LORD, increase our faith!

The disciples asked for Jesus to increase their faith after hearing they must forgive 70 times a day if someone repented. 

They didn't ask Jesus to increase their faith to follow Him. 

They didn't ask Jesus to increase their faith when asked to leave everything behind. 

They didn't ask Jesus to increase their faith as they dealt with persecution.

The disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith when He told them they had to forgive 70 times a day if someone repented of sinning against them. This is the one stumbling block that they knew they really needed help. 

Why? It is found in the daily routine of life. You know those moments of thoughtless spoken words as you go about your day that can build up and grow barriers that will hinder our ability to serve one another. 

Are you willing to say, "Hey, that hurt." in such a way that it causes a heart to recognize their words were off or unkind? So they repent and apologize. 

Are we willing to receive rebukes and apologize without fighting back and throwing lashes? 

Sometimes, I get this. Other times not so much. I like it better when my heart rests in forgiveness. Don't you? 

Crying out today, "LORD, increase my faith!" I am longing for that mustard seed that can uproot a messy mulberry tree.

Confessions of Anger

Have you ever had one of those moments when as soon as it was rolling out of you, you knew you had walked out of love? Now, I am not talking about being loving. I am talking about the kind of moment when you know you are losing a grip on what you know to be good, holy, right, true, and quite simply kind! Suddenly, without warning you find yourself knee deep in offense and whether you say anything or not your heart is no longer walking in love. And if you do say something you realize that if there was a video of you as a human it would depict a not so loving human. I had one of those ugly moments recently. I just snapped. Call it hormones, menopause, frustration, impatience or whatever you want, but it came out of me like a coke bottle that was about to explode. Just typing this embarrasses me. UGH! But, I would be a liar if I didn’t say I acted like this on occasion. I am so glad it doesn’t happen very often, but it happens. It is real in me. I am human. UGH! No, double ugh! I hate evil and I hate it most when it is in me. I found myself leaking tears for several days as I tried to process what in the mess was going on inside me. 

I have been praying for the LORD to give me much fruit in this season of my life. I do not want to waste time and I long to be fruitful. This moment of ugh did not match my prayer life. But, as I prayed and pondered my momentary madness, I realized I had stuffed A LOT! A LOT! And I needed to let some things go. Have you ever done that? I realized that in the attempt to act godly and not be offensive myself, I had allowed some occasions to be pushed down instead of grieving the pain that was caused me. I would tell myself, “Oh, I must forgive!” “Let it go!” “Move on and forget it!” But, the reality is my heart had been wounded and no attempt to reconcile had been made on my part or if it had it was handled in a cavalier, dismissal, or unkind way. It actually took someone being kind in the middle of a confusing moment for me to realize how much my heart had been wounded. 

How do I as a loving woman of God release it? How do I find healing when one of those that caused the pain died last year and one refuses to even dialogue and honestly if this person did the patterns have revealed that it best that we not engage. I know that I cannot change anyone. But, I have learned that the good LORD can change me. I soon realized that part of my prayer for bearing much fruit just happens to be that He wants to prune some pain in my heart. 

So, what is a girl to do? I knew I needed a day with GOD alone. I wanted to take the time to just list it all out and then just burn it. 

I love how GOD pours truth into us or even at us when we are in need of it. Our staff at ASM are working through the book, “Celebrations of Discipline” by Richard Foster as a team building activity for our staff meetings. I chose months ago to do submission and confession because I knew they were the ones I would like to grow in. LOL! Well, I discovered as I studied submission that if I am truly submitting then I am helping myself and those around me to be surrendered to the will of God. Well, guess what! In confession, Foster challenges the reader to take the time to write it all out on paper and take it to someone and confess it. I love it when God affirms something through another that you have planned to do. Foster reminds the reader that the gift of confession releases a dear friend because we become a reminder of God’s forgiveness. 

“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:23). 

My girlfriend, Sabrina, used to call this being Jesus with skin on. There truly is something amazing that happens when we confess something and get it off our chest. Suddenly, we are not alone in our darkness. And when you add in someone that is holy and a good listener that wraps you in the cords of compassion and reminds you of the Father’s forgiveness, well, it is quite beautiful! 

I told Greg, “I am going to list out all the things that are stuffed inside me as anger and then burn it.” 

I am blessed because Greg listens even when he was the very one I dumped on! He did two things for me that were so good. Neither of us can handle us being in a fight for long. We will make up because we are a mess otherwise. After we both sat and stewed for quite a bit I said, “I am so sorry I just let you have it.” I will be honest I was sitting there thinking, “I don’t want to apologize! I still want to be mad because I am mad!” But, I also know that will not bring healing and movement so out of obedience to what I know is right and good I said it.

Then Greg said, “I forgive you!” There it was so simple. He forgave me. I felt it, too, the minute he said it. I confess I sat there for a moment and thought I don’t want to say, “I forgive you!” But, I made myself do it! “I forgive you!” He nodded and we still sat in silence. Sometimes, you just gotta sit in your mess and wait for the emotions to catch up with your obedience. And it did. 

I hate being ugly! I hate unkindness! I hate evil! And I will say this a thousand times over, I hate them most in me! So, I set a date on the calendar and I set the day aside to be holy. It was to be my day to sit and process it all with God. I had to release it more to Him than to a human. I needed a holy work done in me and I most definitely was not the person to make that happen. I just needed to fall flat on my face before GOD and just unleash. I had A LOT OF ANGER in me! You need to know it was not at one person, one event, or one thing. It was A LOT of people, places, and circumstances. I put on quiet jazz got out my spiral notebook. I did not want this in my beautiful journal. This was ugly and it was going to be BURNED! 

Did you know that in Hebrew the first person that the word repent was used to first describe as an action was GOD? Go look it up (Genesis 6:6). 

I once learned that the repent in this verse means leave the house, burn it up, and to never return. That is a little terrifying when you consider it was God who first repented! God regretted creating humans when He saw their wickedness. If that does not do something to your heart, then we need to have a serious conversation! I looked up on Youtube the Hebrew word for “repent” and a video came up titled “Five words you should pray in Hebrew.” So, I paused to watch the video. Here are the five words the video provided: 

Hallelujah means “Praise the LORD!” It honors His beauty, power, faithfulness. 

Teshuvah means “repent and return to God.” It surrenders to His forgiveness.  

Tsedek means upright behavior and wise actions. It reveals His righteousness.

Chesed means “loving kindness or mercy.” It reveals His beauty, grace, kindness, and generosity. 

 

Shalom means “peace.” It is meant to be a prayer and blessing. In our heart, life, and world. 

I immediately knew this was of God and that I must use these five words as the prayer pattern for my prayer time. So, I began to praise God for His beauty, power, and faithfulness. I kept this portion short. I wanted to honor Him, but for today I knew my longer portion was going to be in the Teshuvah. I began to write. I can write pretty tiny, and I kept writing and kept writing. I knew many of the things I was putting down I had already walked the path of repentance and forgiveness, but in case there was any lingering anger I wanted to give it over to God. I wrote until I could not write any more. Immediately, I felt my heart feel the tension unleash. I then began to write over and over all of it the five words. 

Then it was on my heart to write “You are forgiven. You are free!” This was a reminder that it is just as true for each person as it is for me. 

Then I wrote Jesus over and over. Honestly, there is nothing spiritual about what I was doing in writing the repetitive words. It was more for me to rewrite on my heart the truths that each one embodies, and it felt good to me. It isn’t something that should be considered a model, but more as a confession of what God walked me through on this precious journey of confessing anger. 

When I was all done, I sat and looked at my scribbled mess, and I wanted to create! I wanted to be able to paint a masterpiece for each of those five words. They are mine now. They are deeply embedded in my heart, mind, soul, and spirit as part of my prayer journey with the LORD. I feel as if they are His grand gift to me because I sought Him. He allowed me to find Him in words that brought me healing, power, and yes authority to release and unleash my pain and move more towards joy. I love that He immediately gave me visions for creativity. How like God to provide a creative vision after a time of holy confession. 

When Greg came home for lunch on the morning that I wrote my confessions of anger, I showed him my scribbled mess. He looked at me and said, “Why do you still have it? Go burn it! Do you feel better?” 

I have a good friend in my Greg. I am blessed. I told him I wanted him to see it and honestly, as I look at it, it is beautiful to me! If I did not confess it then I could not find release from it. It represented the gift of God’s beauty, power, forgiveness, grace, mercy, generosity, faithfulness, and peace to me. 

Have you ever been so burdened? It sure hurts. I am so sorry if you have your own pain, anger, or even sorrow that you bear. I wrote about my journey hoping that you might go to God in prayer and confess it and release it to Him. I pray you find joy and the gift of creative vision so that you may go and bear much fruit. I know I am much better for having done it and I know you will be, too! Shalom y’all! Tara 3/23/21😉

PS. I chose not to burn it. I have it tucked away in one of my Bibles. It became a visual reminder to me of the gift God gave me in this moment of exposure.