Confusion

"For God has not given us a spirit of fearfulness, but one of power, love, and sound judgement." 2 Tim 1:7


My father-in-law suffers from Alzheimer's.  I know I've mentioned this before in previous blogs.  Lately his condition had deteriotated drastically.  Yesterday was especially critical.  Out of respect and love for him, let's just say that it was not a good day at all.  He had been on new medication and we thought it was helping him to remain calm.  It was completely ineffective yesterday. 

The problem is, he becomes easily confused.  Confusion can set in from his daily routine being disrupted, or be caused by giving him instructions that he can not follow, or even simply saying the wrong thing.  When he gets confused, he can become upset and extremely agitated - sometimes to the point of being uncontrollable.  Usually, he can be redirected and his agitation subsides.  But not yesterday.  He was highly agitated all day.  Nothing helped.  His confusion lead to his agitation.  His agitation further fueled his confusion.  He was caught in a vicious cycle that Alzheimer's plays on its victims...and their caregivers.  There are seven stages of Alzheimer's...based on what we've learned about this terrible disease, Dad is about midway through the 6th stage.  It's heartwrenching to watch what this disease is doing to Scott's Dad...and Mom.

Confusion is an enemy of the mind.  Confusion erodes our sense of confidence.  Within each of us is a compulsive demand to be in control.  We have to live in a predictable world, one structured by daily routines and laced with the familiar.   Our enemy knows this.  Therefore he delights in sending us into panic mode, upsetting the finely defined confines of our little world.

We can, however, be on guard against such attacks by putting on the breastplate of righteousness.  God has clothed us with His righteousness.  He has saved us from sin and death!  And when we wear the breastplate of righteousness, our heart is protected even if our minds are struggling to figure out what in the world is going on.  We have assuredness and confidence that God is in charge and in control.  Even if we do not completely understand why, we can have peace in knowing this truth.   

I am thankful today because I am hidden in Christ and His righteousness...I can experience security in my heart even when my mind cannot understand what is happening or why it is happening.  I'm wearing the breastplate of righteousness today...my heart is secured in Christ even when my mind can not comprehend!

Grace and peace, friends!


In His Love, Cathy

Discipline is Hard

" You disciplined me,

and I have been disciplined

like an untrained calf.

Restore me, and I will return,

for you, LORD, are my God."

Jeremiah 31:18

Discipline is hard - not only on the receiving end but also the giving end.  Those of us who are parents know this too well.  Just before my Dad would discipline me he would always say, "This is harder on me than it is you."  I didn't believe him until I became a parent and had to discipline my own children. 

Discipline is hard.

As parents, we must discipline our children so that they learn right from wrong.  We discipline our children so they learn that there are consequences to wrong choices.  We discipline our children because a child without discipline will grow into a person of lawlessness, who is spoiled, and self-centered.  We discipline so that our children have right relationships with those in their lives.  We don't like to discipline our children, but we do so because we love them and desire what is best for them.

Like us, our Heavenly Father disciplines His wayward children.  Sometimes His discipline may be directly from His hand, such as when he stirred up foreign nations to attack and capture Israel and Judah because God's people had abandoned Him.  But at other times, He may simply allow us to suffer the consequences of our actions.  He may simply turn away from us and allow us to experience the pain of following our own rebellious will. 

But at the end of the day, the goal of His Righteous Discipline is restoration.  He knows what is best for us more than we do.  And what should our response to His discipline be?  We find the answer in Jeremiah 31:19-20.

"After I returned, I repented;

After I was instructed, I struck

my thigh in grief.

I was ashamed and humiliated

because I bore the disgrace

of my youth.

Isn't Ephraim a precious son to Me,

a delightful child?

I certainly still think about him.

Therefore, My inner being yearns for him;

I will truly have compassion on him.

This is the Lord's declaration"

Jeremiah 31:19-20

No matter our sin, the truth is God still loves us so very much.  His very own INNER BEING YEARNS for YOU!  He thinks about YOU constantly!  Think about it!

What's more, He will have compassion on you no matter how far away you are from him or what you have done!  Like the Father of the prodigal son, God is waiting for our return!  There is no greater love than this!

Return to Christ today!  Experience a love that surpasses all and forgiveness like no other!  Discipline is hard, but we can reboot our lives, starting today anew in Christ!

Grace and peace, friends!

In His Love, Cathy

Delivered for Good

"'As for me, I am in your hands—do with me as you think best. But if you kill me, rest assured that you will be killing an innocent man! The responsibility for such a deed will lie on you, on this city, and on every person living in it. For it is absolutely true that the LORD sent me to speak every word you have heard.' "Then the officials and the people said to the priests and prophets, 'This man does not deserve the death sentence, for he has spoken to us in the name of the LORD our God.' … Ahikam son of Shaphan stood up for Jeremiah and persuaded the court not to turn him over to the mob to be killed."     Jeremiah 26:14-16, 24

"Jeremiah was in a perilous situation. No doubt he was very afraid, as we saw in earlier passages. God did protect him, as promised. This passage bears remarkable similarities to what Jesus would experience centuries later. Jeremiah's suffering foreshadowed the far greater suffering that God allowed Jesus to endure. Jesus was turned over to the mob to be killed, because Jesus was sent to suffer and die so we could be delivered for good."
—Diane Eble, author of Abundant Gifts: A Daybook of Grace-Filled Devotions

My devotion today reminded me of this truth...that I have been delivered for good!  I am no longer enslaved to sin or self, but have been raised with Christ into a new life!  But the problem is, I've been living a defeated life - as though I'm still gagged and bounded by sin! 

In Romans 6:5-7, Paul writes, "Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin."


Even though we are saved, we are still human and thus prone to slipping back into living a life of sin - a life of defeat - a life out of control. 

But we don't have to.  Carefully read Romans 6:15-25,

"Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! 16 Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. 17 Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. 18 Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.


19 Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy.

20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. 21 And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. 22 But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord."

We, who are in Christ, are not free from falling into sin.  Quite the contrary.  However, now that we are in Christ, we have His power and resources to live free from the control of sin in our lives!  How? 

• By CHOOSING to become a SLAVE of God!  (Romans 6:16)
• By WHOLEHEARTEDLY CHOOSING to OBEY GOD! (Romans 6:16-17)
• By CHOOSING to GIVE ourselves to righteous living! (Romans 6:19)
• By CHOOSING  to do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life!  (Romans 6:22)

Our salvation is a free gift from God through the Blood of Jesus Christ!  We can not do a single thing to earn that salvation!  But once we have accepted Christ, we must CHOOSE to LIVE for HIM daily!  It will be hard at times to keep from slipping back into old habits and sins that feel so familiar, so comfortable to us.  It's so easy to let our 'self' take over, demanding our way or the highway!  But we MUST allow our new nature - HIS NATURE to permeate to the core of our being.  That can only happen by crucifying ourselves and CHOOSING to become a slave of God!  Only then will we overcome sinful habits that threaten to derail our spiritual freedom!

The good news is that we serve a God of infinite chances.  So when we do mess up, we can repent and seek forgiveness.  That is the point I'm at in my spiritual journey - removing my sinful, weak self once again from the spotlight and enslaving myself wholeheartedlly to Christ.  Lord help me to obey!

So long self - I've been delivered for good!
 Grace and peace, friends!
In His Love, Cathy

Being of One Heart and Mind

You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:13



My devotional today reminded me of the importance of being of one heart and one mind.  What does it mean to be of one heart and mind?  It means that our hearts and minds must be fully integrated - our words and actions matching the attitude of a heart fully surrendered to God.

When we pray, God isn't just hearing our words, He's also looking at our hearts.  My devotional pointed out that "God does not just answer prayer - He answers you."  Our prayers may be filled with lofty and righteous words, but our hearts could be a world away from God!  We can miss out on God's blessings simply because our hearts are not in sync with His.  And our missing out on God's blessings is NOT because God is stingy - it is because of our own heart condition!  The fault does not lie with God, it lies with us!  Our attitude of heart can short circuit our ability to recieve His wonderful blessings!

So, when we present our requests to God, we must be of one mind and heart - a heart in tune with His.  The words that flow from our mouths in prayer must be fully supported by what our heart is saying.  Only when our hearts and mind are of one accord and in sync with His can we climb the steep mountains of life with sure footed faith.  It only takes a misstep of inches to tumble down life's mountain.

Ask God to help you seek Him with all that you are - that your words and actions are a reflection of a heart wholly surrendered to Christ.  

Grace and Peace, Friends! 

In His Love, Cathy

Without Hesitation

The Lord is my portion;

I have promised to keep Your words.

I have sought Your favor with all my heart;

be gracious to me according to Your promise.

I thought about my ways

and turned my steps back to Your decrees.

I hurried, no hesitating to keep Your commands.

Psalm 119:57-60

Our lives have been so busy and crazy lately - jobs, homecoming, exams, kids' sports schedules, Scott's coaching - and the list goes on.  These past several weeks have simply been over the top busy - so much so that I've allowed the pressure cooker of life to dictate my time and resources.  I've allowed outside things to supercede the true priorities in my life.  It's easy to get caught up in the waves of life and get swept away by them. 

Thankfully, God intervened, as He always does when I get carried away.  My devotional passage this morning once again shifted my gaze from the immediate back to the eternal.  God reminded me of my promise to seek Him first and wholeheartedly.  And though I pretty much stunk at my end of the bargain, He was faithful to come through on His end.  When this truth was revealed to my heart this morning, I  ran as hard as I could back to Him - without hesitation, my arms lifted high reaching up towards my heavenly Father! 

And you know what?  He reached down, picked me up into His loving arms, and swung me around - my heart was overflowing with such great joy and love!  As laughter and praise filled the air, my heart was once again made right! 

Run as hard as you can, back to the Lord today, without hesitation.  Make Him your everlasting portion!  Live for Christ today!  He is simply waiting to lift you into His loving arms!

In His Love, Cathy

A Change of Heart

"'The human heart is the most deceitful of all things,

and desperately wicked.

Who really knows how bad it is?

But I, the LORD, search all hearts

and examine secret motives.

I give all people their due rewards,

according to what their actions deserve.'"

Jeremiah 17:9-10

"God has set up a moral law no one can escape: We reap what our actions sow. And our actions spring from the heart, which God alone knows. Even if you're a believer, you will live the results of your actions for good or bad. Perhaps this is what "fear of the Lord" is: living with the sure sense that God will give all of us our due reward, according to our actions, based on our motives. The answer is not the actions, then, but the heart. Let God change your heart, and your actions will be right. Then you will reap the rewards that follow."

—Diane Eble, author of Abundant Gifts: A Daybook of Grace-Filled Devotions

Been feeling out of touch with God lately?  Then examine your heart.  Ask God to expose anything  and everything that might be causing spiritual interference.  Maybe you already have an inkling as to why you are having a disconnect with God lately yet you are in denial.  Perhaps there is something going on that you just flat out refuse to surrender to the Lord or trust Him with.  Whatever the case, our actions (or lack thereof) is the physical expression of our hearts.  An unsurrendered heart will eventually show up in the physical realm in the form of our actions.  When it does, God allows the consequences of such to play out. 

We can hide our hearts from others, even ourselves.  But our hearts are laid out open before God. God knows our hearts completely...the good, the bad, and the ugly.  There is nothing we can hide from Him.  Therefore our best course of action is to wholly surrender our hearts to Him.  He can shore up our weaknesses and help us to live 'in fear' of Him - changing our hearts from the inside out!  Surrending to Him and trusting in Him will lead to a heart change...and a life change!

Live for Him today...moment by moment surrender your heart to Him!
Grace and peace!

In His Love, Cathy