Pondering God's Word • Handmade by God

Inside Out

“Do not let your adornment be merely outward — arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel — rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.” 1 Peter 3:3,4

In other words, don’t just spend time trying to look good on the outside. Work on the inside — the place nobody but God sees. Make it a point to be adorned with a mild, gentle, tranquil, and peaceful spirit. This is of great value and is very precious in God’s eyes. After all, He’s not giving me a thumb’s up for what I look like. It’s the inside that matters.

All the makeup, hairstyles, clothes, jewelry, hair color, anti-wrinkle creams, shoes, and purses are really not much more than decorations. This made me think of Christmas trees! All the decorations hanging on them do nothing to make that tree be a tree. They just temporarily give the tree some unnatural character. Character that has absolutely nothing to do with the tree.

They don’t enhance the tree or make the tree more tree-like. In fact, all the decorations take away from the tree and the tree itself is not noticed anymore. Sometimes branches get damaged or broken, and eventually the tree just ends up dying because it’s been uprooted to be the center of attention.
That’s how all my “outward adornment” (decorations) work too. They end up hiding my inner self. They damage me because I begin to place more emphasis on all of that than on who I am on the inside. The adornments have nothing to do with having a gentle and quiet spirit. They’re all temporary. Fashions change. Hair grows out. Color fades. Skin loses its elasticity and gets wrinkles.
My spirit , on the other hand, is eternal.

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Giddy Up!

To wake up each day knowing I am loved deeply and unconditionally by God is something I want to be consciously reveling in. He adores me. He’s CRAZY about me!

So no more waking up annoyed that it’s time to get up. Instead I need to stretch, wiggle my toes, yawn the sleep out of my body, and feel His love embracing me until I’m giddy! Then, with all that goodness flowing through me, ask Him to show me each step of the day. And after that, climb out of bed ready for anything and everything, knowing He is with me.

“Cause me to hear Your lovingkindness in the morning, for in you do I trust; Cause me to know the way in which I should walk; for I lift up my soul to you.” Psalm 143:8

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Room for Two

“…pray without ceasing…”
1 Thessalonians 5:17

I know my limitations on how much talking and listening I can pull off. And I typically stay in my lane as they say. Because when I don’t, I am completely drained and exhausted by an excess of either one.

So how does someone like me pray without ceasing? God created me, and that means He designed me this way. I think it’s safe to say He made some of us – like me – to be introverts and others to be extroverts. But how do I be me and still be able to live in a close relationship with Him?

Going to the Greek definition for proseuchesthe (pray), the word means to interact with the Lord by switching human wishes, or ideas, for His wishes as He imparts faith. And this verse says to do this without taking any unnecessary breaks.

Sometimes my wishes and ideas are spoken out loud to Him. But the rest of the time they are swimming around in my head. My mind seems to never stop working!

So I don’t think praying without ceasing means that I’m to be carrying on a stream of constant chatter with Him all day long. I think it simply means that in addition to the purposeful conversational times I have with Him, I am to be conscious that He is with me in my thoughts.

My mind, unlike my voice, doesn’t ever seem to stop unless I’m asleep. And part of praying unceasingly is recognizing that whatever thoughts I have, I am having in His presence. So realizing this is true …

Shouldn’t this naturally result in giving thanks more often and a lot more promptly?
Shouldn’t the sense of the need for forgiveness be immediate?
Shouldn’t this make fear instantaneously become the recognition of having the powerful almighty God with me?
Shouldn’t worry instantly become confident assurance?
Shouldn’t this allow for the repair of pain or sadness the instant it begins?

Fortunately, my waking hours don’t have to be a ceaseless jibber-jabber with God. Instead, I am to have a constant awareness that He is with me all the time, closer than anyone could be. He’s just waiting for me to make some space for Him.

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Niagara Heart

“A good man, out of the treasure of his heart brings forth good;An evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil.”Luke 6:43-45

Something interesting I discovered is the Greek word for treasure. It is thesauros – a storehouse for precious things, which is the root for our English word thesaurus – a storehouse of synonyms. I also discovered that the Greek meaning for bring forth refers to moving something with high energy and force to its necessary state of being obvious, apparent, evident. The good man (or woman) referred to here comes from the word agathos – describes what originates from God and is empowered by Him in their life, through faith.

Yes. That was a lot of background. But necessary! This made me think about how my heart (my treasure chest) is full of words that describe what I’m all about, what’s important to me, what I believe, what I spend time thinking about. It’s constantly being filled by what I chose to put there (my treasure). And the words that come out of my mouth are completely shaped by all I’ve stored up in my heart. So, sadly, sometimes what comes out is not so good.

But if I store up scripture – God’s words – in my heart, what I treasure will constantly be sorted out by the transformational power of the Holy Spirit. Honestly, all the things I throw in there are not all that good, and if I were left to the tending of it, I’d likely hang on to things that should not have been put there in the first place.

I can’t hope in or rely on my ‘good nature’ to make me one who” brings forth good”. But I can rely on the fact that the only reason I can have any evidence of goodness in me is that I am a believer – a person empowered by God to do good.

So, the more I sink my thoughts into God’s Word, my less than stellar thoughts are adjusted, and my heart fills up with goodness to the point of overflowing. And that’s a big relief. Otherwise, I’d have to wait for all the bad to leak out to make room for the good!

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Shine

I’ve felt dull lately in my appearance, and it seems that whatever glow I used to have is diminishing. My body is not what it was ten years ago. Clothes don’t fit the same, so I have to be more strategic about what I wear. The gym is not producing the same results it used to.

I’m wearing the body of my grandma and sometimes don’t even recognize my own face in a mirror! So I’ve felt a loss of confidence as well as an increased sense of irrelevance. That’s because my body deceived me into thinking that my outward appearance was what defined me and gave me worth as a woman.

I discovered this in a place I would typically not look to for validation as a woman… Proverbs 31. Yes, that’s right. The most feared chapter in the Bible for us girls, because the woman described seems so impossible to become. And, therefore, many of us go away from reading this chapter feeling even worse about ourselves.

Something got into me though (the Holy Spirit I imagine), and I took verse 30 apart, looking up each word’s meaning in the original Hebrew language. The verse says that the favor and adornment of my form and appearance (charm) deceives, disappoints, and betrays. Beauty is vain, worthless, transitory, and has no purpose (passing). But the woman who has a reverence for the awesomeness of God (fears the Lord)… she shall be praised.

All of that was such a fabulously eye-opening new understanding of how God wants me to see myself. But that’s not all. The word praised in Hebrew translates to SHINE! Isn’t that something?

So that means I will shine if I have a reverence for the awesomeness of God. If I quit critiquing myself and instead gaze at the holy wonder of my all-knowing, all-powerful God who adores my 56 year old self, that will put a glow on my face!

“Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.” Proverbs 31:30

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