bless your heart.

I'm sitting here on this rainy Monday absolutely freezing at my desk, and a little tired because I didn't make good decisions about my bedtime last night.  Despite those things, I spent some really great time with Jesus this morning and I asked for him to make my spirit sensitive to the things I should be learning and I just now learned something really cool, so thanks, Jesus, for two things:  1. waking me up this morning with enough time to pray and seek after you and 2.  for this really cool lesson that I'm about to share. 

My office is small, probably no bigger than most of your living rooms, and that includes office space for 7 people.  So, you can imagine that we're readily involved, both voluntarity and involuntarily, in the lives of our co-workers every minute of every day.  I typically plug my ears with headphones and work pleasantly to the musical selections of my day, but this morning has been different.  I figured that if I wanted the Lord to open my heart to learning opportunities, the first step was going to be to listen.  So, I am keeping the headphones out of my ears today. 

Ten minutes ago provided the first learning opportunity.  One of my co-workers was on the phone talking to a doctor -- I don't know the specifics of their conversation, but I do know that my heart heard three particular words and then my spirit learned a lesson.  Bless your heart.  She said it on the phone at least 5 times, and then I started thinking about what she could be saying that about -- then, I realized that instead of trying to investigate the cause for my own satisfaction that it would be really cool if I actually learned how to bless people's hearts.  Instead of instantly gratifying my needs, I learned that when I say things, I should mean them.  How different would things be if I actually started intentionally blessing people with my actions, words and thoughts?  How life-changing would it be if through my intentional blessing, I was enabling people to believe the best about themselves and also to bless other people?  My spirit just learned a lesson -- blessing people has to be intentional.  We have to approach the relationships in our lives believing the best and with intent to bless in every way possible.  That's how we spread the Kingdom.

I also prayed this morning that the Lord would equip me with the resources necessary to bless others today and this week.  It started with the lesson, now on to the blessing. 

Happy Monday :)

Purpose that doesn't grow slack

Hello faithful readers, whoever you are!  I'm so excited to share something awesome with you today -- something that has completely shifted my heart and opened my eyes to so much perspective in the last two days.  Wednesday night was one of those nights where, after making myself go to church solely because it was the right thing to do, I came home humbled, blessed, encouraged and changed.  It's funny how when you don't want to do things and then you do them anyway, there's no room for bad attitudes.  Just being honest -- my attitude has been bad lately, but that's beside the point.  Actually, it's not, because it led to me recognizing that my fruitfulness has to start at the root of who I am, but you see my point.

Anyway, we heard a message at church that was so essential to moving forward -- it was about the tie between passion and purpose.  For a long time, I've felt like I just needed to discover my purpose so that I could move forward with it.  Am I going to stay in Boone and book travel for doctors forever?  Is my husband here?  Do I need to move?  Do I need to change jobs?  Am I wasting God's time and being selfish?  PAUSE.  I have to discover who I am first before I can be aware of my passion and I have to walk out my passion before I discover my purpose.  What?  Never thought of it that way before but thank the Lord that Pastor Hunt preached that sermon and thank the Lord that I decided to push through my bad attitude and go to church.  I'm still working all of that out and processing and praying so I don't have too much to report, but I did read this this morning:

Point number one:  Your purpose never grows slack.  It is tied tightly to your future in Heaven.  You don't have to stress just because you don't have everything figured out right this second.  You're not wasting God's time, you're learning and growing exactly according to his will, even if it doesn't feel like it.

Point number two:  The Message bears fruit and gets larger and stronger.  Daily.  If you invest in the Word, the Word produces fruit in you and other people see that fruit.  Keep investing.  Keep digging.  Keep praying.  Your return will be worth it.

Point number three:  You'll keep getting hungry for more.  It's funny to think that I had some pride in this area.  I seriously thought that since I had read these verses in Colossians (and all over the Bible) time and time again that I couldn't learn anything else.  False.  I keep learning the more that I invest.  I keep getting hungry for more knowledge and wisdom the more time I spend digging into the word, even the verses and chapters that I've read repeatedly. 

I'm really preaching to myself, but if you're reading, I hope you're now encouraged.  Praying that you and I figure out who we are at the core, and that we become aware of our passions and that we act out our passions so that we can discover the Lord's purpose for our lives.  Can't wait for that to happen.  In the meantime, I'm committing to loving and investing in people like never before.  The time is so over for it to be about me.  It never should have been about me.  This is a new year, ladies and gentlemen, and today is a new day, so I'm moving forward.  Thanks, Jesus, for making that an option.

Stay tuned for my goals of 2012...accountability is definitely the way to achieve what you're after, right?!