Tag: source

neon handiwork

Karla Lees

I have been enjoying and learning so much from digging into His Word, without speed reading. I have purposely slowed myself to take in each verse, and seek the Message for me to apply to my own life.

When I read or study a book, I pull out my trusty highlighter. I mark it up and make it obvious to myself what I need to remember from what I just read.

God not only uses His Word to show us the way He has for us, Holy Spirit highlights it for us as we read it to draw our attention to what He wants us to see or learn in that moment.

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God Himself highlights His Word to capture our attention to it!

Holy Spirit knows us so well, the right verse in the right time will become neon to us when we open the Word & ask Him to reveal what Word He has for us in that moment.

‘But, isn’t that weird’ you may be asking yourself. That God Himself would take the time to make a verse or passage jump out to us?

God is the Source of all wisdom, the Knower of all things, seen & unseen. All Truth, Holiness & Righteousness.

Asking Him to highlight what we need to hear or work on is wise living to me!

Why let worry or anxiety rise to the surface when you can sit at His feet at any time & hear Him speak to you?

Retraining how we respond to stress, how we see time & how we connect all intersect in Him.

He is our source of peace & rest.
He is beyond time & space.
He is the one who designed us all & shaped our very beings.

Why wouldn’t all things find themselves in Him?

Ask Him to bring to light a Word He has for you today. It may be a Word you have stored in your heart, or one you will newly discover when He highlights it for you.

PS. And what shade of highlighter is Holy Spirit? Yes…all the perfect colours ever!

where to go for Hope?

Karla Lees

I recently had someone ask me where i go to for Hope on those hard days.

The sources I use to redirect me back to Him, so I can keep my eyes focused on my Hope and not the circumstances surrounding me.

First, I turn to God, which is three part for me:

  • The Word:  i read the Bible every day.  You may have a favorite translation as do most of us.  For reading in chunks, I like the Message. For in depth verse studying, i use the ESV, NIV & NASB.   I read the Bible in book, tablet & online formats on a daily basis. I love the free resource of Bible Gateway, and prefer my Olive Tree paid app for my tablet/phone (both iphone & android).
  • Worship:  I worship daily.  Even if its singing along in the shower or making breakfast, or with my headphones on walking to work or riding the bus. Depending on your favorites, we could all have a very different worship mix on our phones or ipods.  That doesn’t matter. Offering Him praise & worshipping Him for who He is is what counts.
  • Write:  I write my prayers & what I glean from the time spent in the Word & in His Presence.  I tweet, journal & blog most days, to in part hold me accountable to do so, but also records what insights He speaks to me.

 I read a few devotionals:

Christine Caine’s First Things First reminds me to keep God in first place in & over all things.

Max Lucado’s Daily Devotionals are both audio and written, s depending on the day I can either read or hear today’s reminder for my soul.

On Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays, I receive Drops of Encouragement  emails from Remade Ministries for an extra jolt of encouragement for my soul.

Bonnie Gray, of Faith Barista is one author I follow, so I receive an email whenever she has a new post.  I resonate with both her writing, and that of fellow Canadian Ann Voskamp of A Holy Experience. God has used these two women’s writing in particular to help reshape, encourage & heal me.

 I also study the Word.

Currently I am working through Stronghold by Remade Ministries founder Beth Kinder with an online support group that meets weekly via Facebook.

She Reads Truth is both a great site & app for bible studies, and one example of online based ones I love to use.

I also follow encouraging & uplifting sites, writers, worship leaders, etc on social media.  Sometimes God only needs to catch my eye with one image or quote to redirect me, raise my hopes or encourage me.

I meet with my friends & support network at least once weekly.

Without knowing i am arm in arm with my sisters & fellow believers, I can wallow in loneliness and allow despair to try & suck me under the waves.  My sisters help keep my head above the surface, prayerfully lifting me up & reminding me I am not alone, neither here or forever.

I share the good times, hard times, frustrating times & wait times with those God has blessed me with.  I offer the same to them in return.

Iron indeed sharpens iron, and a chord of many strands will not easily be broken.

Daily time with God is my source of Hope.

It has taken me many years to structure my life to put Him in first place, and as I am not perfect this is always being tweaked & modified as I go through different seasons and life.

By purposing to seek Him first, He becomes my source of Hope.

May you rely on Him for the same.

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talk to me

Karla Lees

There are many voices we listen to, but one that can do the most damage if we give it free rein.

And it may be impacted by the enemy, but it isn’t him.

It’s my, your inner voice. 

Our self talk can block us from hearing God’s voice, keeping our minds so humming we are left desperate for peace & rest.

Yesterday was not a good day for me.

I have a tendency to ‘what if’ when it comes to being told ‘let’s meet’ without any details.

That feeling like you are being called into the principal’s office to get reamed.

Which is funny for me to feel, because that never happened to me.

Part of it is feeling off balance with not knowing what is coming but having been given just enough notice to set my mind on the hamster wheel, and part is my insecurity.

I don’t think I deserve blessings, so I auto think worst case scenario.

And that isn’t healthy for me, my mind or my relationships, especially with God.

As I said yesterday was a mental fight to regain my peace.  So when the worst case scenarios started running through my head, I simply but strategically prayed for God to give me peace in the wait, give me wisdom and to prepare me for whatever might come up. 

Coz really, if its my time to leave a job, freaking out about it doesn’t help me change the reality or cope well.

So I made sure I ate well, did some stretches to keep myself loose, and kept on working, trying to not allow my mind to wander but stay on task. I tried to actively listen for His voice, and let go of the fear of the unknown as I did.

Wisdom is found in knowing we need help, and asking for it in from the best source possible.

Prayer was the best thing I could do at that time, in that busy office.

At home, putting on praise & worship music and diving into the Word helps me calm my mind, and face my fears, knowing God is with me.

I don’t have to let the ‘what its’ have any long term air time. Keeping them as brief commercials means I don’t need to fear them, I can choose to change the channel from Woe is me or fright night to Rest in Him.

At any time,
in every situation,
call out to Him
for what you need.
Whether rescue, rest,
restoration or wisdom,
we will find purpose,
peace in His Presence.
Let the fear go,
let Him go before you.
The wise ones seek the Source of all Wisdom daily!

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I belong to You, forever You have my heart

Karla Lees

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Just like you, I need to be reminded regularly how much I am loved.

And just like you, I have come to realize that I can’t always have my needs met by those around me.

I fall into the mindset at times where I expect my loved ones to ‘just know’ when i need to hear I am loved, without needing to tell them.

I don’t think I am alone, for I believe we have all been hardwired to need affirmation, love and appreciation.

But we are not always prepared to dig in and seek them from their Source.

The best way to receive love?
From its Source.

But going to the source isn’t enough. God IS more than enough, but love takes effort on our parts.

We need to:

Believe it.
Receive it.
Appreciate it.
Reciprocate.
Express it.
Soar with it.
Encourage it to grow.
Never take it for granted.
Fight for it.
Protect it.

There are three main ways to receive God’s love.

1. From God, Love Himself.
Through prayer, spending time in His Presence, listening & resting in Him, He reveals His love to us – in as many ways as there are possible depending on the recipient!

Take some time daily, and go to your favorite place to connect with God. It may be your fave chair, room in your home, pathway or in your car during your travels to and fro. He will be found no matter where you go to seek Him! Just as you feel closer to your loved ones after time with them, make sure to date God regularly if you want love to grow & flow between you.

2. His Word.
This tangible touch of His love is written for all to be able to know this Love. For His love story began before Creation as a whisper in God’s heart, and will last forever as we love our way through eternity together.

Take a walk through the Word, and look for all the ways He showed love and made promises to those who draw near to Him. Write them down, highlight them. Leave a track record for you to remember & return to when you need another reminder of His love.

3. His children.
Through the love of other people, and the love they have found through God that they have recorded in word, art & song. Sometimes a piece of music, artwork or writing strikes the right chord within us, and opens our hearts to His love in a new way. And that child of God was just expressing His love for them, and their love for Him….and the overflow can remind the viewer, reader & hearer.

Pull out a source you have that reminds you how much He loves you. It may be your old photo albums, remembering how He has been with you every step along your journey. It may be a painting that speaks to your heart. It may be a book that sketches with words His wooing love for those who wander looking for Home.

For me, time with God involves seeking Him through His Word. Digging deep, wrestling with who I am and who He longs for me to be. Listening & chatting with Him, sensing and waiting in the quiet place where we gather. Worshipping through the Psalms, worship & music cds and singing a new song when it rises up out of me.

God is calling “I love you, come Home” to His bride, for deep love is constantly calling out for the one He loves.

There are a few songs recently that have been like arrows into my heart I would like to link in below for you to hear.

May His love for you echo loudly through the words, melodies and harmonies as you listen.

May you know where you belong, and who has Your heart, forever.

I Belong to You, Derek Johnson

Love Came Down, Kari Jobe

Yours Forever, Darlene Zschech

You Don’t Miss a Thing, Amanda Cook

go to the source

Karla Lees

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I am an avid learner, as I recently shared in my desire to keep taking courses. I like to study the Word, read how others interpret the Word, and grow through the process.

The image I am sharing today struck me as a great visual reminder of the three key ways to encounter truth, and become wise.

1. Search for It.

We don’t know what we know or don’t know until we begin to search for knowledge.

The world opens up to a child when they grasp the alphabet, and the lining up of letters to make words. Being able to read helps widen our search area for knowledge.

Being a knowledge seeker means we are searching for truth. We want to know the facts. We long to know what is true, in a world that likes to blur the edges of all it reveals to us.   But  real fact is based on truth, and will have a ring of the Holy in it as a result. For God is Truth, and all truth echoes back to its originator.

2. Make it Live.

Insight is living out the truth we now know, discovered through seeking out knowledge.  If something is true, and we know it, we live differently through encountering it.

As a very young child of 3-4, I broke my money out of my piggy bank and walked to the donut store behind where we lived to buy 6 donuts.  I ate them all fairly quickly to hide the evidence, and I learned very quickly that 6 donuts was way too much food for my childish frame. 

The truth I learned is if I want to do something in secret and am not comfortable telling someone else about it, it isn’t something I should be doing.  (And I will get sick from six full sized donuts!)

Applying the truth through what we learn takes it from being a just a fact to making it relevant to our lives.

But there is still a key element missing to knowledge & truth, which leads me to point…

3. Seek the Source.
Real knowledge and truth comes from the Source of it all, God.
As He is truth, and all wisdom, He will reveal both to use when we ask for help. Discernment occurs when God reveals the truth in a way we could not have discovered ourselves without Him.  In times of heightened stress & emotions,  we can forget what we have learned and applied, and that is where drawing close to the Source is crucial. The eternal God has insight beyond our comprehension, which can reveal way more in one moment than we could spend a life time trying to learn for ourselves.

We will never find truth, knowledge & wisdom apart from God. He not only knows all, He is the starting place for all truth & wisdom. They are Him, integral characteristics of the Almighty amazing complex God we are drawn to.

Need wisdom?
Seeking truth?
Lacking insight?
Go to the Source!

A few nugget verses to check out from the Word about wisdom, truth & knowledge:

Proverbs 1:7; 8:11-21
James 1:5
Colossians 3:16
Romans 11:33

But more importantly….

 

I ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength!

Ephesians 1:17-19