Can you imagine the time and energy it must have taken to place every single egg into place in order to balance and create such a thing? While I am very impressed with what has been accomplished, I must say that my first thought when I saw these pictures was NOT "how cool!"

In fact, it was just the opposite. I could not help but think "what a wasted life." There is just something inside of me that wonders if God is up on His throne in heaven saying, "I sure wish you would spend days, weeks, even months balancing eggs." I just can't conceive that God created anyone for the purpose of egg balanced art. That when He breathed life into man, that His dream for them was to accomplish art from eggs or spend all their days working diligently to create such a thing. I just can't see Jesus cheering him on and saying, "well done! that is why I created you. Keep up the good work." There is NO doubt in my mind that God can use anything to further His Kingdom and advance His fame. There is NO doubt that we can use any talent we have as an opportunity to advance the heart of God-even egg art. But there is just something inside of me that screams....DON'T WASTE YOUR LIFE. Spend your days becoming and making disciples of Jesus Christ, investing life and relationship in others for the sake of the Kingdom, living for the name and renown of God, laying down your life for one another. How is it that we have come to a place where we glorify egg art over the greatness of a Holy God? And how is it that we don't believe that this is a wasted life and that living wholeheartedly, surrendered to Jesus is? I don't know....just feeling a little sad today over so many who waste their lives NOT chasing God with all that they are, but instead choose things of this world. I just KNOW that God is not on His throne hoping we will accomplish great egg art, but instead is crying out for us to Go and Make disciples of all nations. Anything less...is a wasted life.

This was just such a picture of that to me.
Doxa
Christy Upton
The intimacy of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and He will make them know His covenant. Psm 25:14
for more....check out http://doxaglory.blogspot.com

ALL FOR YOU

simulated rain?

Downpour.....it is what I have been praying for since October of last year. Sitting in the verses in Hosea 6:1-3 and crying out to heaven that He would send the rain. Over the recent months, I have spent a lot of time thinking about, praying for and longing for rain. While sifting through Hosea, I realized that Hosea 6 is connected to Hosea 5. (I know, I am a little slow) What a revelation of truth there! God tells us in chapter 5 that He will go away until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face. Basically, says that there will be no rain until we Repent and Return. (exactly what Acts 4:19 affirms.)
That hit me like a ton of bricks. We can pray for rain. We can call down heaven. We can ask for a downpour, a deluge or even hurricane-but He will withdraw from us, until we Repent (change the way we think, turn from our sin and abhor it) and Return (turn back and follow after His ways, pursue, harrass and run after Him!). We can pray for it, but it will not come without the Repenting and Returning.
While meditating on these things and asking the Lord to cause me to repent and return so rain may fall in my life, I was struck by a visual that the Lord gave me. We have really needed some rain-both spiritually and literally. My grass needed to be watered. We had run the sprinklers a couple of times, hoping to help it, but what it really needed was just a good downpour. Why? Because simulated rain is not a replacement for what only heaven can bring. I can water my grass with simulated rain (sprinklers) everyday, but it will not produce what one downpour from heaven can do. Simulated is not the same as real. And simulated will not sustain-only what is real produces the effect wanted.
The same is true for our lives. Simulated "rain" is not the same as real. We can try to simulate a downpour from heaven, but only a real one will produce the effect wanted. We can try "sprinklers", but what we really want is for the sky to open up and rain down. And THAT only happens when we repent and return.
So, I was on my way to a pool part last week and praying through all these things. NOT wanting simulated rain. NOT wanting to turn my sprinklers on and just asking the Lord to send a deluge of rain. About an hour into the party, the clouds began to brew and before we could leave and get home....a downpour came. I was telling the boys in the car how gracious the Lord was to answer my prayer, that I had prayed for rain and here it was. Naturally, they were upset that I had prayed for rain when they were going to a pool party. What was I thinking?
Isn't that how many of us think when it comes to asking the Lord to rain down? What if He does? What if He rains down and it ruins our party, our life, our plans, our comfort? What if He rains down and the wind blows and it uproots some things that have been? What if "trees" fall?
Then so be it....if God rains and things are uprooted...then they were not intended to remain. We should never fear the rain, but instead repent and return and cry out for it...so that we can live before Him, press on to know Him, be raised and revived.
But NONE of this will come without the REPENTING AND RETURNING. And NONE of it can be simulated. Everyone will eventually see that simulated won't isn't real-because simulated doesn't last.
If you are finding life dry....pray for rain.....but don't expect any-unless you repent and return. And then wait-don't simulate, because simulated is not the same as real. We don't want sprinklers. We want a deluge of heaven, raining down on us. ALL FOR YOU

altar and plow

Once again, it is getting late. When Jim is gone I burn the midnight oil. I think better at night. And it is quiet. I guess it takes my mind all day to gear up, but once it starts moving...it is hard to gear down. So, here I sit, in the quiet, with my thoughts, dwelling on this phrase that I am falling in love with. NO...it isn't written on my wall...not yet anyway.
I was looking at some Scripture in Acts about the Altar that Paul saw while passing through their town. Inscribed on the altar was 'to an unknown God'. I thought it was quite funny that they would make an altar to an unknown God, as if to say...."in case we missed you....". I have always wondered if people passed through my life, what would they see written on my altar. What would they observe as the object of my worship?
Don't fool yourself. We may think and say that we worship God, but everyone knows what is on our altar and what it is we worship. For some it is an unknown God...a God they don't know, have not experienced and don't really want to let in close. For others, it is an object, an ego, pride or people.
And yet, Christ has called us to place our lives upon His Altar. To sacrifice all. In Fact, Paul reminds us in Romans 12 that our lives are to be offered to God as living sacrifices-as our spiritual service of worship. Consecrated to Him. Our lives are to BE on the altar.
However, for most, as we pass through their lives we can see that they are not on the altar, but instead worshipping at the altar of an "unknown god". Funny...how everyone else sees that when we don't. Deceived....our gods are not really unknown....only to us because we won't admit them. For everyone else passing through sees them.
I want my life to BE on the altar.

The second word is plow. I first started praying over this word as I was studying through Hosea. Hosea 10 talks about breaking up the fallow, hard ground in our lives, for it is time to seek the Lord-until He comes to RAIN righteousness on you. As I have been seeking to sow righteousness, I have also been painfully aware that in order for that to take root and for the rain not to become RUN OFF, that we must break up the hard ground-otherwise the rain comes, but the ground does not absorb it and does not bear fruit-it just runs off. So I have been praying that the Lord would break up/plow up the hard ground. I want to be part of that....I am not asking for the easy way. I don't mind hard work. I don't mind putting my hand on the plow and working the ground so that it is ready for what God wants to do.
There has been a lot of plowing going on. Breaking up and making the ground ready...so that when it does come a deluge...it won't just be run off.
But this week, that thought became even more precious as I read in Luke 9:62 that "No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." Our lives are to be about the Plow as well. Allowing the Lord to break us up, but also being part of those who til the soil. And if we don't do this...we are not fit for the Kingdom. If we are lazy and not willing to be broken. If we are unwilling to do the work necessary to prepare the soil. If we spend our time looking back instead of plowing ahead. We are not fit for the Kingdom of God. NOT MY WORDS....HIS. We are to put our hand to the plow...break it up and not look back...but move forward.
My heart is to be a plow. Allowing the Lord to break up the fallow ground in me, but also tiling the soil and not looking back in the Kingdom.

And then I was thinking the Altar and the Plow go together.
The life of being a living sacrifice doesn't mind being broken nor does it mind working hard to break up what is hard. Our spiritual service of worship is to allow the Lord to break us and then to break up the hard ground. It is to sacrifice and put our hands to the plow and never look back. To conform us to His image and bear much fruit as we sacrifice ourselves and plow up the hard ground.
So I think I might be ready for the Altar AND the Plow....
neither seem like fun....sacrifice, brokenness, Hard work....yet, when it rains-much fruit will come and thus prove that I am His disciple and He will receive much glory.

Altar and Plow....just a thought....ALL FOR YOU

Jim is gone and the house is quiet, now that I have the other two boys in the bed. I spent the bulk of the day at baseball, which is a good thing. I get to spend time with my boys, while redeeming the time...listening to preaching. I listened to all of John MacArthur's sermons on the BeAttitudes. Since we are teaching that in TREEHOUSE right now, I could certainly use the input to help wrap my mind around the truths we are trying to teach and live out before the kids. (5 hours of sermons...my brain is tired...but it is GOOD!)
But that is NOT what this is about. Most of you know I take TONS of pictures. Well, today I had some of them printed and was busy framing and hanging them tonight around my house. But that is NOT what this is about either. Hanging the pictures on the wall got me to thinking about what I want on the walls of my house. Which led me to the WORD of God. Which led me to ONE WORD-which is a Bible study method I have been using lately. Allowing the Lord to focus my heart on ONE WORD, penetrate my heart with that truth and wrap my heart around it so that I can obey. I am finding that a lot of the time I have trouble with ONE WORD. So why move on?
Anyway, I don't want to get bogged down there. Because this isn't about that either. I was thinking about the WORDS that God has been using to pierce my heart and to change me and the way I think. I was thinking about words like; Breathe, Dream, Checed, Yada, Doxa, Run, Canopy, Perhaps, Naked, Free, Roots, Coffee....all things that bring me back to a truth that I am working on. So, I stopped hanging pictures and went to writing words on my walls. Most of you will think that is weird and would never take a paint pen and begin to write on your walls. But for me....well, I am just weird. So, I picked up the pen and began to meditate on the WORD and allowed the Lord to tell me which words to write....Lampo-the Greek Word for Shine. Ruwts-the Hebrew word for Run. There were more, but I won't bore you with my list of words.
The point is this....We can hang pictures on our walls, but the heart of the Father is that His Word be written on our hearts. So, instead of JUST hanging pictures on the walls, I want a daily reminder of the WORDS HE is writing on my heart. I don't want the Word to just be a picture that is on my wall. I want it to pierce my heart and to get into my bones. I want to bleed it when someone bumps into me and I want it to be the natural exhale of every breath. So, my office is slowly becoming a place full of Words. You may walk in and think....what was she thinking. But to me...those Words....HIS WORDS...they are life to me.
For I do not want the Word written only on my walls. I want it written on my heart.

Exod 34:27 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel."

So tonight, I guess I was just wondering if there might be ONE WORD....that you could write on your wall as a result of HIM writing it on your heart. You don't have to take out a pen, but I was just wondering....in all of us....if we had to write ONE WORD-that explained what God was teaching or doing in you in your heart-would you know what to write on your wall? ALL FOR YOU

a picture says it all...