Spills are not always a bad thing

I love having a Pedicure, how about you? It's such a nice feeling to soak your feet, (in my house we call it "having my fat feet done." I have fat feet. And sausage toes. But I'm totally cool with it, I've accepted that fact about me and it's now become a term of endearment in my home. Along with my Polish calves. But that's another story.)

When you get a Pedicure, they shape your toe-nails, scrub your feet and heels in an attempt to smooth out any rough spots, then they delightfully massage your Polish calves. Er, I mean they massage your calves. Not everyone has PC's. Polish Calves. Again, it's a term of endearment folks, no need to say "awe Jen don't be so hard on yourself." I'm cool with it. But I blame my mother. And my aunts. If I were a blamin' sort of gal. Ok, clearly I'm off the path here...

Whenever I get a Pedicure though, I always feel so bad for the person doing it! I think, gosh, it must be a tough job to do that all.day.long. Dealing with peoples feet all.day.long. And who can know the state of everyone's feet! Can you imagine? Feet are not the most attractive attribute of a person. Did you ever meet someone and think "my they have nice feet!" No! Wait, I think I have. Nevermind. You get the point.

So today I was reading in John about Jesus washing the disciples feet. I've read it before but today it leaped off the page right into my heart. It's a long passage but I want to share it here because it's so profound:

John 13:1-17 says, Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. 2 And supper being ended,[a] the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, 4 rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. 5 After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. 6 Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?” 7 Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.” 8 Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” 9 Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” 11 For He knew who would betray Him; therefore He said, “You are not all clean.” 12 So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. 16 Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

The picture that plays in my head regarding this scene is so fascinating. Can you imagine the disciples reaction to this? And I'm sure there were servants in the room as well, what must they have been thinking? In those days, it was a servants job to wash the feet of the guests as they came in. People wore sandals and walked on dusty roads so it was not un-usual for your feet to be cleansed as you arrived into a home, however, it was very un-usual for Jesus to be doing it.

Here you have a man that has literally changed people's lives in the short time He had been ministering in full effect. People had been healed from tremendous things, raised from the dead, devils cast out, broken hearts made whole...all through this man Jesus. And now He is doing the job of a servant.

The great I AM, washing feet. The King of Kings, washing feet. The Lion of the tribe of Judah, washing feet. The Bright and morning Star, washing feet. The Creator of the universe, washing feet. The Lily of the Valley, washing feet. My redeemer, washing feet. Your redeemer, washing feet.

I would share in Peter's response of "Lord, what are you doing? You don't wash my feet! No way! I'd rush to get up, to cause Jesus to quit doing that lowly job. No way is MY Lord going to wash MY filthy fat, sausage toe havin feet! No way."

And yet Jesus says if you don't let me do this, you have no part in me. Hmmm. Wow.

Serving each other unites us on such greater a level then we can imagine. The unity felt in that room after Jesus finished that amazing act must have been something out of this world. Well, minus Judas. But still...serving unites us.

That's one thing I absolutely love about our Church, it's full of servants. People that would not bat an eye at getting down and washing someone's feet, so to speak. They are willing to rise high, to go low. Powerful people, powerful feet washing people.

Smith Wigglesworth said, "We are no good if we only have a full cup. We need to have an overflowing cup all the time. It is a tragedy not to live in the fullness of overflowing. See that you never live below the overflowing tide."

Ephesians 5:18 tells us to be "filled with the Spirit." The same book tells us in chapter 3 to be "filled to the measure with the fullness of Christ." You never know what a person can do when they are filled to the measure...when you are so full of the Spirit that you in your own self can't contain it all, so it begins to spill out on all those around you. If we stand tall all the time, steady as a rock, nothing can spill out of us right? It's only until we bend down and begin to wash the feet of another person, that stuff begins to spill. When we get down in people's lives, stuff spills. When we enthrall ourselves for the cause of another, stuff spills. When we feel the pain of another, walking through hardship with them, stuff spills. When we serve, stuff spills.

I want stuff to spill out of me today, how about you? May the Spirit of God so flow through us, that as we bend to serve, that sweet Spirit would spill. And spill. And spill.

Why?

I've read the following scripture before, even pondered it on occasion, but it's coming to life for me lately...

Isaiah 55:8-9 says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the Heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

I can fully get that; God's ways are higher than mine, He has a reason for everything that He does. I can read that verse and say yep, I will never understand why God moves the way He moves. Furthermore, I'm thankful for this verse. Thank God that He does things outside of my understanding, cuz how boring if He only operated according to my thoughts.

But then you see this verse in action in the lives of people around you and it causes you to really ponder the truth of what is being said. Really, really.

Yesterday, a woman in our church, one that I've grown to love a great deal over the past few years, went to be with the Lord. She fought cancer - and when I say "fought," I mean it in every sense of the word. This woman is an enigma, to say the least. I've never seen a person walk through such an intense storm in life with the amount of grace and strength as she did. Her joy for God was absolutely contagious. To watch her praise during worship was something out of this world, literally. I can only recall a handful of times she actually missed church during this battle, in fact, she was just there less than a week before she died. This woman was a fighter. She did everything she knew to do to receive a healing from the Lord. She followed the Word of God in every way possible, she did all that we know to do. And yet, she still was taken home without receiving a physical healing, here on this earth anyhow.

Now, of course we believe that she is in the midst of an ultimate healing. We could not bribe her back here if we tried! She is literally seeing with her own eyes the things that we have only been so lucky as to read about. And more than we have read...more than we can imagine...because again, our thoughts can't even begin to go there.

So as my heart is so grieved over this, as I will no longer be able to watch an extraordinary trophy of God's grace dance before Him, I'll not be able to sit and joke with her about the state of her wig or the lack of her make up, or the fact that her husband had the job of once helping her with her make-up, thereby making her look like a clown, or the fact that she was called a little old man in the hospital once, so she decided to wear fancy sparkly hats from there out...I'll greatly miss those things...BUT, I have the hope that I'll see her again.

And as I sat yesterday upon hearing the news, pondering this woman's faith, an unshakeable faith, I asked the question that we all have asked at one point or another, why? Why was she called home to glory? Why was she not healed here on this earth? Because in my mind, wow, imagine the amazement the doctors would have felt if she was healed here. Imagine the glory God would be given.

And then I was quickly reminded of this verse. My thoughts are not His thoughts. What I think would have been a phenomenal chapter for her cannot even match what God's thoughts are on the book of her life. Only God took each step with her, journey after journey. Storm after storm. Victory after victory. Setback after setback. Miracle after miracle.

I can try to reason why God moved in this way, but again, my thoughts are not His thoughts. So even my reasoning isn't even a drop in the bucket compared to the reasoning of God.

Why did the Lord take my husband's dear mother home at the young age of 46? In my thoughts, man, imagine the glory that could have come to the Lord had He chose to heal that precious woman completely! My girls would have the joy of knowing her. I would have the honor of having a mother in law. But again, my thoughts are not His thoughts. My ways are not His ways.

So to anyone that might find themselves in a place of "why" today, remember this verse. It won't answer your question, it won't immediately take the sting away from the grief, it may not even bring you that solace you so desire in this particular moment...but if you will allow yourself to fall back into the arms of Jesus, eyes shut, body limp, just fall back. The one that does know the answer will catch you. And one day, in the sweet by and by, you will ask the questions, and He will tell you why.

As the Heavens are higher than the Earth, so are His ways higher than ours. That's pretty high. But not too high for Him to catch you. He's just a fall away...

You actually can

I started taking some kickboxing classes last week, AKA "torture classes." There is one instructor in particular who is very, very difficult. I'd say she was my friend but I've come to doubt the validity of our friendship after the brutality this woman puts me through! Ahh well she actually is my friend, and she does push us, extremely hard, but it's good as it causes me to do things I have never been able to do.

So the other day Lily (my 4 year old) & I were talking about Miss Nina and how tough she is; I was telling her how she always encourages us, telling us "you can do it!" To which Lily said, "She's actually right, you CAN do it. You never give up."

The way Lily so emphatically said that was great! She said it as if to say, "duh mom, of course you can do it, because you never should give up." In her little four year old mind, it's common sense, you don't give up. It's not optional. You just keep going.

I read this morning in Matthew such an encouraging scripture: Matthew 25:21 says, "His Lord said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord."

This is the passage of scripture that describes what each individual did with the talents they were given by their Master, this referring to money but I liken it to the gifts God has given us. I love how the Bible says in Matthew 25:15, "To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability."

"Each according to his ability." Hmmm. "Each according to his ability." One more time, "each according to his ability."

When I look back over my life, (mind you I just realized I'm actually a year younger than I thought I was, so I have an extra year to live now!) and I focus on the years that I've been a Christian, about 21 years now, it's interesting to look at the "talents" God has given me along the way. First of all, 21 years? Wow. Thank you Lord for saving me as a teenager.

Second, God gave me talents? Yes. And He has given them to you as well. That's a bizarre thing to process isn't it? I never, ever look at myself as talented. I consider myself average, always have been. I've never been one to think gee, I've got skills. Because I don't. Although I can bust a pretty good groove...in my head. And I can make up random songs about random things, preferably to 80's tunes. But I digress.

Average. In the middle. Not a cut above, not upper class, not in the higher bracket, not necessarily below, but not above. Hmm. Some of the words that are used to define the word "average" are, "medium, mediocre & ordinary."

Gosh. When you look at it like that, it sure is a stark contrast to what God say's about us, isn't it? The Bible tells me that I am "more than a conquerer." That means I'm not only winning the battle, but I'm taking spoils with me. More. God tells me that "I will be the head and not the tail, above and not beneath." Then of course we know that we "are fearfully and wonderfully made, that God's works are marvelous."

Me, marvelous? Above? The Head? More than a conqueror? Nah, not me. Not this little girl that grew up in a horrible environment, poor, abused & shamed. Surely God is not referring to me. Surely He is speaking to everyone else right? Because this little girl from the ghetto is lucky to even be average. I deserve far less.

How about you? Is that how you feel too? I'd venture to say that many of us do indeed feel that way. Because if we didn't, if we really grasped the intensity of God's call on our lives, if we truly knew that He indeed has "clothed us with strength and dignity," if we really, really, really could comprehend that every scripture in God's Holy word is actually for us little old average folks, then my goodness friends we would be taking up the talents that God has given to us, and we would run this race set before us; we would have the confidence that caused Lily to say, "Of course you can do it,YOU NEVER GIVE UP!"

I'm not average. And neither are you. Anyone that calls themselves a son or a daughter of the King of Kings has no room for mediocrity. Our blood is too strong for that, our inheritance too rich. The same power that flowed through Jesus is the same power that flows through us. Jesus was anything BUT average.

I don't know about you, but I can picture Jesus, kneeling down to pick me up from my self-proclaimed average position, slowly lifting me up until our eyes met - imagine that for a moment. Looking into the eyes of your Master. The one that knows everything about you, the good, the bad and the ugly. He knows it. He knows your doubt, He knows your anger, He knows your thoughts, He knows your actions. He knows it. He knows the environment you were raised in, He knows the struggles that you faced, He knows the hills you had to climb and He knows the valleys you have sat in. He knows it. And regardless of it all, He bids you to come. And when you come to Him, He cleans you up, He restores those things that have been taken from you, He puts all kinds of goodness into ya, and then He does something that he certainly does not have to do, He gives you talents.

Jesus has given each and every one of us talents. What are yours today? And we're not talking "America's got Talent," or something. Not a gift that the world views as a talent, although sometimes that is the case and God certainly uses that. But I'm referring to that thing that God has gifted YOU to do. It's unique to YOU. Tailor made for YOU. And whatever it is, it will draw people to the Lord. Cuz that's how we do...

Like the scripture in Matthew said, good and faithful "servant." When you love Jesus, you will use your talents to serve. When Jesus consumes every part of you, those gifts just keep on flowing from you, often un-awares. When He is your all and all, you say like Lily, "You actually can do it..you never give up."

You actually can. You actually can...