Jennifer • Handmade by God

Beat the Heat

A candle melts from the heat of a flame. Ice cream softens from the warmth of a sunny summer day. Ice liquifies when taken out of the freezer and put into a drink. When encountering some heat, they all change shape. They weaken. They become a different consistency. And it is impossible to get them back to their original state without the loss of some of their substance or form.

Grief and sorrow cause my soul to melt. They leave my heart in bad shape. They weaken me. They threaten the consistency of my faith.

Without God’s words found in God’s Word and the words He speaks into my heart, I would be hopelessly changed by heartache. I would be the wax that melts into a flat puddle and then hardens. I’d be the ice cube that melts on the ground and then evaporates. I’d be the ice cream dripping down the side of a cone becoming a sticky mess.

Grief is part of life. It can’t be avoided. But God can and does prevent me from completely falling apart. Unlike a candle, ice cube, or ice cream cone, the melting I experience will never be my demise. He will strengthen me. He will help me to be able to withstand the heat!

“My soul melts from heaviness;

Strengthen me according to Your word.” Psalm 119:28

Beauty School

On a quest to understand what it means to fear the Lord, I came across this verse and got super excited.

“Come, you children, listen to me:

I will teach you the fear of the Lord…”

Apparently it was something to be learned. Ok! I thought. I can do that. I love learning! So I continued reading.

“…Who is the man who desires life,

And loves many days, that he may see good?” (NKJV)

Ohhhhhhh…. and then I realized, here I am – one who doesn’t want to get older. What I see with more days added to my life is more gray hairs, more lines on my face, and more saggy parts. This verse, though, is telling me to delight in each day, to have pleasure in them and want more and more days, so that I “may see good“. And guess what the word good translates to in Hebrew? BEAUTY!

It seems to me that I just got schooled in what beauty is. I was thinking that beauty was something that faded and that more days equaled less beauty. But this is telling me that with a God fearing perspective, more days mean more opportunities for beauty.

It looks like I need to change my way of looking at getting older. It’s about being beautiful rather than looking beautiful; it’s about looking for beauty rather than mourning it’s loss. And it’s not actually about getting older at all. It’s about getting to have that many more days to experience God’s goodness. His beauty never fades!

Familiar Forever

John 3:16 – A familiar verse… but think about it!

“For God so loved the world…”

He loves every single person regardless of whether or not we love Him. And He has such high esteem for us and takes such great pleasure in us…

“…that He gave…”

He didn’t just love us from afar. He didn’t just hope the best for us and wish us well. He didn’t just talk about how much He loves us. He gave us something… Someone…

“…His only begotten Son…”

He gave us His very own Son! Not a love song or a poem. Not a statue to remind us of who He is or to serve as a symbol of His love. Not a one-time-only miracle expressing His love. He gave us His Son who took on all our sins and gave His life on our behalf so…

“…that whoever believes in Him…”

This offer is for anyone in the world who believes in Jesus…anyone who has been persuaded and convinced that He truly did live and does live and is the Son of God. The unbelievable result of this belief is that we…

“…should not perish but have everlasting life.”

He’s giving us the chance for eternal existence instead of an everlasting end. He wants us forever.

Holy Joy

Something occurred to me today as I was praying for someone who has suffered from anxiety and depression. I asked the Lord to bless this friend – who intended to spend the evening scrapbooking – with joy while she worked. I wanted so badly for her heart to be lifted tonight.

But I started to critique my request, thinking that surely there was something more holy my friend needed to do in order to be blessed with the joy of the Lord.

Then it came to me that maybe scrapbooking is holy. After all, God is creative. He is the Creator of all things. All I have to do is look around to notice that He’s got quite an imagination. He created us in His image, so when we are creative we’re being just like Him.

AND He finds joy in His creation, so I think it’s entirely possible that my friend will feel some holy joy as she creates!!

“The glory of the LORD shall endure for ever: the LORD shall rejoice in his works.”
Psalm 104:31

Empower the Impossible

A dad, who had watched his son suffer for years, was asking Jesus to have compassion and heal the boy. Jesus’ response was, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”

To which the man cries out with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

I can relate to that man so well! I believe God can do anything. Absolutely anything. He created all things that exist. There is nothing He cannot do. But when it comes to something very personally important to me, my faith falters and sometimes fails.

But Jesus said that if you have the power within to be able to believe, ALL THINGS have the power to be possible when you have faith in Him. All you have to have is the ability to believe… to have faith in His ability.

So what I need to do is build up my faith muscle just like I build up my leg muscles in order to be able to endure a difficult run. My faith muscle must be worked on regularly in order to grow strong enough to lift the really heavy things – with ease – up to God fully knowing He can do it. Whatever it is!

EMPOWER THE POSSIBLE

and when you’ve built up enough faith muscle

EMPOWER THE IMPOSSIBLE