What an amazing God we serve. I recently told a good friend that there’s a big difference between being religious (multiplicity of rules impossible to follow) and knowing Jesus personally (relationship).

 

 

On the day Moses set up the Tabernacle,

 

he anointed it and set it apart as holy…

 

Numbers 7:1

 

 

I’m slowly absorbing how God’s meticulously defined boundaries protected his people from his holiness; and then marveling at how he himself shattered those under-the-penalty-of-death formalities with penalty-paid-in-full intimacy….

 

 

You know that you are God’s sanctuary

 

and that God’s Spirit lives in you,

 

don’t you?

1 Corinthians 3:16

 

 

and reward…

 

 

For we know

 

that when this earthly tent we live in

 

is taken down

 

(that is, when we die and leave this earthly body),

 

we will have a house in heaven,

 

an eternal body made for us by God himself

 

and not by human hands.

2 Corinthians 5:1

 

 

I get too eager to share my love for the Lord sometimes and jump the gun with words; but I never want to beat my friends over the head with my faith—and so I pray…

 

 

Father God,

 

please help me to never disturb

 

the caterpillar-to-butterfly transformations

 

that you are engineering.

 

In Jesus name I pray,

 

Amen.

 

 

 

King David cheated with a married woman; and when he found out she was pregnant, he murdered her husband.

 

God knows everything about us. Everything. Period. Before we were even born, he knew everything we’d ever think, say or do.

 

That includes me. It also includes the Obama, Clinton, and Trump families.

 

So the Lord sent Nathan the prophet to tell David (the king) this story: “There were two men in a certain town. One was rich, and one was poor.

 

The rich man owned a great many sheep and cattle.

 

The poor man owned nothing but one little lamb he had bought. He raised that little lamb, and it grew up with his children. It ate from the man’s own plate and drank from his cup. He cuddled it in his arms like a baby daughter.

 

One day a guest arrived at the home of the rich man. But instead of killing an animal from his own flock or herd, he took the poor man’s lamb and killed it and prepared it for his guest.”

 

David was furious. “As surely as the Lord lives,” he vowed, “any man who would do such a thing deserves to die!

 

He must repay four lambs to the poor man for the one he stole and for having no pity.”

 

Then Nathan said to David, “You are that man! The Lord, the God of Israel, says: I anointed you king of Israel and saved you from the power of Saul.

 

I gave you your master’s house and his wives and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. And if that had not been enough, I would have given you much, much more.

 

Why, then, have you despised the word of the Lord and done this horrible deed? For you have murdered Uriah the Hittite with the sword of the Ammonites and stolen his wife.

2 Samuel 12:1-9

 

But years before that happened…

 

…God removed Saul (the king) and replaced him with David, a man about whom God said, ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart. He will do everything I want him to do.’

Acts 13:22

 

I serve an improbable God. He loves the Obama, Clinton, and Trump families. I am praying for the same.

This morning I told Sonia, my trainer, that I wished her voice could just follow me home and talk while I’m exercising.

 

One of my goals is to develop new muscle memory, but I’m not there yet. Sonia always explains and demonstrates—using correct form and posture—a brand new exercise for me. Then she’ll say, “And now it’s your turn.”

 

I rarely manage to do it right the first time, but she watches and instructs me while I try. Her words help me move from wrong to right positions; and once that happens, my muscles can feel the difference. I’m gaining strength and improving my balance.

 

Our conversation this morning reminded me of something from my years as a mental health counselor. Oftentimes a client would say, “I could hear your voice in my head this last week,” and believe me, I was always curious to hear what they’d remembered.

 

The words I’d like to hear from Sonia, when I’m exercising at home, are the same things she repeats every time I work out: engage your core, straighten your chest, keep your feet straight, your booty out, and your knees behind your toes. Basic things that help improve my form and protect me from injury.

 

The words my clients remembered were usually things I’d also said repeatedly: stop your worry thoughts, journal, get some exercise, eat enough protein, and pray. Basic things that help build mental and emotional muscles.

 

It was a simple process in my thoughts this morning to leap from physical to mental/emotional to spiritual muscles—because I want the very same thing from the Lord. I want his voice to go with me—to grow my strength and improve my balance.

 

Some things I’ve been learning: the more I do basic stuff like reading his word—the more his voice goes with me; and the more I pray—the better I can hear him.

 

My joy is growing deeper.