Stones of Remembrance

Joshua Chapter 4:Long Story Short

Joshua was instructed by the Lord to tell the priests to take up the Ark of the Covenant and walk out into the flowing waters of the overflown Jordan river. Then the waters dried up and the Israelites crossed the Jordan on dry land. Joshua was instructed to have one man from each of the twelve tribes to “take for yourselves twelve stones from here, out of the midst of the Jordan, from the place where the priests’ feet stood firm. You shall carry them over with you and leave them in the lodging place where you lodge tonight.(Joshua 4:3)” They were told to take the stones with them so that they won’t forget what God did for them! They were told that their children would ask them what the stones meant to them and they were to tell them that God dried up the river so that they could cross safely on dry land. Then Joshua set up twelve stones where the priests had stood. “The priests who bore the ark of the covenant stood in the midst of the Jordan until everything was finished.(Joshua 4:10)” Once everyone had crossed over then the priests carrying the ark of the covenant crossed the rest of the way. As soon as the priest stepped onto dry land the waters flowed back into the overflowed banks.

I encourage you to read Joshua chapter 4 in it’s entirety.

The ark of the covenant contained the presence of God. Notice the location of the ark through the whole event. God went before them, God stayed in the midst of them, and God followed behind them! Just as He did for them He does for us. That was a monumental event! So monumental that He told them to take a stone of remembrance with them.

We have events like that in our own lives. Our stones of remembrance come in other forms though. It may be a photograph or video taken at the event. It may be a scar left behind by the event. It may be something you wrote in a journal about the event. It may be a miraculous healing. It may be something that was provided when it was needed. Whatever the form our stone of remembrance takes, someone at some point will ask about it. And we can be prepared with our answer ” God was with me”.

I encourage you to write down your “God was with me” moments so that you have them to remember what God did for you.

Relentless Pursuit Continued

I originally wrote this post for a devotional contest. (Hence my absence from here). However my piece was not selected due to an uninteresting title. Here it is below as is. I figured I might as well use it somewhere so here it is because it technically is a continuation of my previous post. If you can think of a catchier title that would have drawn you in, I would love your input!

Where is my Beloved? (original title)

“I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. He feeds his flock among the lilies.” Song of Solomon 6:3 (NKJV)

Tokens of His affection are scattered all around us. We need only open our eyes to see and our hearts to receive.

Those were the words cycling through my mind that day. I had two miles of walking before reaching my destination. With every step I took and every breath I exhaled those words made themselves known.

I had started that morning out with the ever-present longing for that fairy-tale romance. That sweep you off your feet tangible love. That someday my prince will come mentality.

During my walk, my someday dreams were brought to a screeching halt by those words. Words that could not be ignored any longer.

So I asked Him, ‘What do you have for me today? Open my eyes to see it and my heart to receive it.” And He did. He wrapped me in warm sunlight and soft breezes. Cotton-tailed rabbits hopped along beside me. Butterflies flitted and birds twittered about me. The sky was my favorite color of blue and I passed by a field full of my favorite flowers. And this was just my walk to my destination! My walk back brought me cool breezes laced with the scent of rain and a rainbow off in the distance. He surrounded me with things I love that day. And He does so every day. Those are His tokens of affection that He scatters around me.

As long as I can remember, I have been asking Him ‘where is my beloved?’. That day He answered, ‘I am your Beloved and you are Mine.’

He showed me that I had got so caught up in the someday dreams that I failed to see the today realities. I failed to see that He not only pursues me but He makes Himself tangible. He showed me that I was wasting my time looking for what might be when He wants me to experience fully what He has for me right now.

That doesn’t mean that I won’t have my someday dreams in His someday timing. It just means that I am learning to be content with what He has for me right now today. I am choosing to see and receive the tokens of His affection. Because tokens of His affection are scattered all around us. We need only open our eyes to see and our hearts to receive.

Relentless Pursuit

I took this photo on my birthday last year. That day I had woken up to gray skies and threats of rain. That just made what I just knew would be a horrible day even worse. I kept thinking about that dreadful 30 coming next and the countless ways my life had gone so wrong. I was nowhere near where I wanted to be, hadn’t accomplished the long list of things I wanted to do with my life. I felt as if I was going nowhere fast. Twenty-nine wasn’t looking so good to me that day.

As my family and I were heading out the door that day, my mood was just as gray as the sky. I remember leaning against the doorway and thinking “Once, Just once; I would like to have blue sky on my birthday!” But blue sky in November just wasn’t going to happen. At least I had convinced myself of this.

On our drive to dinner and a movie, this woe is me self was staring out the window when all of a sudden the sky opened up and a shaft of light shined through. And there it was, a patch of blue sky in the shape of a heart!

And I didn’t even directly ask God for it. But He knows our thoughts. (Isaiah 66:18). He knew how desperately I needed that piece of blue sky.

It was as if He was saying, “I see you, I know, I am here, I love you.” In that moment I realized that God pursues us. He was pursuing me that day.

His pursuit of us is relentless. It is “immovable in purpose or will” and “occurring without interruption or end”.

These past couple of years for me have been about pursuing more of God. But in the midst of my pursuit, I failed to see the moments when He was already there. He’s already here!

Tokens of His affection are scattered all around us; we need only open our eyes to see and our hearts to receive.

“Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” – Romans 5:5

In My Father’s Arms

I will never forget that day I climbed into my father’s lap and asked him why we were not packing his things in boxes. I was five years old and didn’t fully understand what was going on. But I was observant. I knew enough to know that we weren’t packing his things. I looked him square in the eyes as he gave me a half-truth. The army wouldn’t let him go yet. He still had another year of service left at Fort Leavenworth. I will never forget looking into his eyes that day and seeing the heartbreak pooled there. It would be years later that my mother would reveal the full truth to me. She had every intention of filing for divorce that year. I am so thankful she didn’t. He may have been gone for that one year but by the grace of God, he won my mother’s heart back and is still here with us today.

I don’t know if it was because of that ‘lost’ year or those few scary times when we thought we might lose him to one health problem or another; but to this day my favorite place to be is in my father’s arms.

There is truly nothing like the sound of my father’s heartbeat.

The sound of his heartbeat takes away all the fear and melts away the stress. There, I am safe and secure. I’m a daddy’s girl through and through.

As much as my earthly father loves me, there will be and are days when he will fail me. I will be let down. Promises will be broken. His arms will fail me. He won’t always be there to catch me when I fall. I won’t always have the sound of his heartbeat.

But there is One whose arms are everlasting.

Deuteronomy 33:26-27New King James Version (NKJV)

²⁶“There is no one like the God of Jeshurun (the upright one),
Who rides the heavens to help you,
And in His excellency on the clouds.
²⁷The eternal God is your refuge,
And underneath are the everlasting arms;
He will thrust out the enemy from before you,
And will say, ‘Destroy!’

My heavenly Father desires me to depend on His everlasting arms more than I desire my earthly fathers arms.

Everything I need can only be found in my heavenly Father’s everlasting arms.

Psalm 16

Preserve me, O God, for in You I put my trust.

²O my soul, you have said to the Lord,
“You are my Lord,
My goodness is nothing apart from You.”
³As for the saints who are on the earth,
“They are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.”

⁴Their sorrows shall be multiplied who hasten after another god;
Their drink offerings of blood I will not offer,
Nor take up their names on my lips.

⁵O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup;
You maintain my lot.
⁶The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;
Yes, I have a good inheritance.

⁷I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel;
My heart also instructs me in the night seasons.
⁸I have set the Lord always before me;
Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.

⁹Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices;
My flesh also will rest in hope.
¹⁰For You will not leave my soul in Sheol,
Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.
¹¹You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

A Searching Heart

“All we find are Band-Aid cover-ups. The wound is still there, just hidden away.”

We are all in search of something.

We look for love. We look for a sense of belonging. We look for purpose. We look for security. We look for what we’ve lost.

Our heart longs to find that which it lacks.

We are so desperately hungry for it, that we look in all the wrong places. We look everywhere but the one place it can be found. We want love so we turn to people and our hearts get broken. We want to belong, to be accepted, so we try to fit in and we find ourselves trying to be something we’re not and end up hurting ourselves. We want to have purpose so we try anything and everything that we think might make us happy but end up more empty than before. We’ve lost things and people along the way and are grasping for something, anything to fill that void. But nothing we do works. All we find are Band-Aid cover-ups. The wound is still there, just hidden away.

Are you looking in the right place?

All these things and so much more can only be found in one place. They can only be found in Jesus. ” But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”- Matthew 6:33 Seek Him first! He should always be the first place we look. You need not look far. He said He will be found by us. “You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” – Jeremiah 29:13

What is your heart searching for?

A Heart of Value

What if we had the imaging technology to see our hearts through God’s eyes?

Your heart is of great value to you. From a medical standpoint, it is of high import. As long as your heart is beating and your blood is coursing through your veins; all systems are go. A heart that stops beating typically results in death. We know to take care of our hearts for this reason. We even have the medical technology to see what our hearts look like, how they are functioning, and what might be blocking them or keeping them from functioning. We do everything we can to keep them going strong.

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23 KJV

As important as our heart is to our physical life, how much more important it is to our spiritual life!

The Darby Translation says to “keep thy heart more than anything that is guarded”. In addition to guarding (keeping) our heart we are also told to guard our mind (see Romans 8:5-6) and to guard our mouth (see Ephesians 4:29). All three are important. But the heart is of high import. I love the way the Living Bible puts it. “Above all else guard your affections. For they influence everything else in your life”.

What you do with your heart affects everything!

What if we had the imaging technology to see our hearts through God’s eyes. What would we see? Would it be well guarded as He advises us to do? Or would there be missing pieces, blockages, malfunctions or death?

Have we given our hearts to people it should not have been given to, only to be returned with pieces missing. Have we allowed things/sin into our hearts that have caused us to die a spiritual death. Have we held onto things we should have let go of that create blockages in our hearts. Have we let lies and doubts plant themselves in our hearts like seeds causing our hearts to malfunction.

Examine your heart. What you’re storing there comes out.

Luke 6:45 ” A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

A Heart to Know Him

Jeremiah 24:7 KJV “I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.”

Today this verse strikes a cord with me. For the longest time, I knew about God. I had a heart to know about Him. I loved hearing the stories about him. I loved memorizing and reciting His word.

But I didn’t know Him. I didn’t have a heart to know him. I am discovering that there is a big difference between knowing Him and knowing about Him. Knowing about him is good but it doesn’t really mean anything until the head knowledge turns into heart knowledge.

Sometimes I look to other translations for different wordings for better understanding. In the amplified bible it says “a heart to know, recognize, understand, and be acquainted with Him”. Contemporary English version says “a desire to know him, and a want for him to be our God”. International Standard Version says “the ability to know him”. The living bible says “a heart that responds to him”. That’s a lot of responsibility on our part! But he’s already done His part.

He desires to know us! So much so that he gives us a desire to know him. It’s a relationship that requires communication and action! Let’s not be one-sided in this! We get more out of him than he gets out of us. Let’s make this personal. (He will give me a heart to know him, that he is my Lord: and I will be His, and He will be my God: for I will turn to him with my whole heart.) This implies an intimately close relationship. He desires to be with us in that secret place, the place that only He should ever be allowed to go.

See Psalm 91:1

Do you know Him? Or do you just know about Him?

Baggage

This suitcase has been used and abused for seven years. It has been to places it never thought it would go. It has been pushed beyond it’s limits. It has endured pressure. It is stained. It’s edges are frayed. It’s zipper is broken. And now it lies in a trash heap forgotten.

We are like that suitcase. We carry around ‘extra baggage’. Things we should have let go long ago. And rather than lay it down at the foot of the Cross, we just keep picking up more and more baggage. We keep packing it away until the weight of it wears us down and we start to look frayed at the edges. We’ve stuffed ourselves so full of ‘baggage’ we are starting to tear at the seams and our zippers (hearts) are straining to contain it. What we’ve stored up on the inside is starting to overflow and become visible to those around us. The stains (sins) we’ve tried to keep hidden are seeping through. We’ve been through the pressure and the trials and the storms of life. We have gone through circumstances we never thought we would face. We have used and abused ourselves and allowed others to do the same. We have pushed ourselves beyond our limits and spread ourselves so thin there’s nothing left to spread. We got through all these things but we’ve lost sight of Who brought us through it. We only saw our frayed edges and broken zippers. We came through battered and torn and stained. We place ourselves in the trash heap and imagine ourselves forgotten.

But we don’t have to be that way. We have a choice.

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28

“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool. ” Isaiah 1:18

I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against Me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned and by which they have transgressed against Me. Jeremiah 33:8

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:57

He knows our brokenness, He knows our stains, He knows our struggles and trials. He’s there with us through it all. He has not forgotten us. He wants to pick us up and clean us up and mend our brokenness, and take us with Him.

We are that suitcase. We must not only remember what to do with the “baggage”, we must also let the correct person carry it. A suitcase isn’t self propelling, it’s propelled by an outside force. Are you going to let God carry you or let satan drag you down.

No More Permissive Will

Proverbs 19:21 ” There are many plans in a man’s heart,
Nevertheless the Lord’s counsel—that will stand.”

How true this is! And oh the countless times I’ve chosen to learn this the hard way! God has a special plan for all of His children! If only we would choose to be obedient, if only we would choose to listen to His voice alone.

He does allow us His permissive will, but He desires us to be in His perfect will.

I started this blog six years ago. Then I was all about missions and going back to Africa. Though I am still very passionate about missions and still love Africa, God is moving me in a new direction. You will notice that those older posts have disappeared and the name of this site was changed four months ago from Mali Love to Write With Purpose. I do still love Mali, but I want my words to speak life. I want my words to have purpose. I want my words to lead you to Jesus.

God’s plan for me far outweighs anything I could ever plan on my own. My plans have slipped through my fingers like sand in an hour glass. But God’s plan/ God’s counsel will stand the test of time.

The Dwelling Place

Today in a moment of calm at church, I’m lead to what has become my go-to scripture. Psalm 37:4 ” Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” Delight in Him, be joyful in Him, love Him, set your affections in Him. But then I see that word ‘also’. This implies that there’s more to the story, there’s more to this equation. It’s not just delight in Him but ‘also’. My eyes go to the verse before. The verse that’s been sitting on my desk for the past week. I finally make the connection, this verse before is the ‘also’ in this equation.

Psalm 37:3 ” Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.” Trust in the Lord and do good. That’s pretty straightforward, no explanation needed. But then we have dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Faithfulness speaks of promises kept, trustworthy, words spoken true, never failing. Feed on His promises! Feed on His Word!

We’re left with dwell in the land. What land are we supposed to dwell in? Dwell in the land of promise!

Trust in the Lord and do good, trust that God is who He says He is and let your actions represent that trust. Dwell in the land of promise and feed on His faithfulness. Delight also in Him, and then after you’ve done all that He will grant you the desires of your heart.