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How to be Weak

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

If Henri Nouwen is correct in today’s e-mailed deovtional, and he is when he states,”Joy and Resentment Cannot Coexist” and if it’s also true, and it is, that “the joy of the Lord” is our strength. then unforgivness (resentment) makes us weak.

In my current quest for positivity, my Zero For Six adventure against negativity, I am aiming for joy, for strengh. Indeed I am aiming for the acquisition of the very joy of the Lord God Himself!

How is this going? I’m stumbling here and there, and seeking my way in communicating with those who, it seems, would rather be weak. It also seems as though some people prefer resentment to joy. That is entirely their business, of course, but does that mean they have a right to inflict their negativity on me? No.

The trick is in rejecting the negative person’s negativity, but not rejecting the person. Negative people have already rejected themselves, the Word of God, perhaps even God, and they expect further rejection. This is where it is helpful to say something like, “I’m doing a Zero For Six adventure of no negativity for six months! Wanna join me?”

It is also helpful to saturate that person in prayer, whereby we get perspective on their preciousness to God. This helps counter our perspective on their aggravation to us. We need a change of heart, or at least I do. Otherwise, I will not overcome evil with good. Rather, bad company will corrupt me.

Negativity is contagious, but there is a vaccine, a sure innoculation. It’s the Mighty One–Jesus. The only time I feel those sick symptoms of negativity, that debilitating weakening of frustration, is when I hold on to an offense. I am actually choosing Death, rather than God’s mandated choice–Life. I am choosing to fearfully focus on and glorify what Satan’s crowd is up to.

We can be less than worms with fear and negativity, or more than conquerors in Christ Jesus.

“You show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy…”
PSALM 16:11 (NRSV)

Zero For Six–Feeling the Freedom

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

So much more than time is lost to the screen, to junk TV. As we connect to the entire world we lose connections with our own hearts, and with our Creator. As we watch and see and are programmed by the creations of others, we cease to create. We are stilled. Jailed even.

The great narcotic, the false god, the black box we come before at every opportunity–that is TV. “There’s nothing worth watching,” we hear others lament, and agree. And yet we go. Just as pagans of old throwing the valuable before a dead god to no avail, so we sacrifice our very lives to TV.

That man who was called into politics–he only watches the news and rants. The child whose art was lauded and entered into the World’s Fair at age 6–she can’t wait to leave her cubicle and get home to her shows. And year after year she becomes a bit less picky about the offerings. She’s not even embarrassed that porn (call it what you will) comes into her home day after day. (Note: research reveals there is an inverse relationship between watching porn and a personally satisifying sexual relationship.)

Yes, there are Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth, Emma, Jeeves and Wooster, Fawlty Towers, and James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small. But how many times can you watch these, or Quigley Down Under, Man on Fire, and Rocky? If there’s nothing worth watching, push the “off” button. It can be done. We can just stop rewarding Hollywood by opening our pocketbooks and hearts to insulting excuses for entertainment.

Last night, May 31, was my final movie for six months, and I chose carefully. I considered You’ve Got Mail, and my visiting daughter suggested Bruce Willis’ Red, but we couldn’t find the DVDs (not paying for movies via Internet). I thought carefully. What would be worth the watch–excellent plot, casting, acting, and not a single dull moment? Oh, and one where the guy gets the girl. I chose a movie where I actually did shut my eyes (I take seriously the Bible’s admonition to guard my heart) a time or two for a moment or two. What is this paragon of a movie? Spectre.

Interestingly, given this post’s subject and matter of introspection, Spectre is about James Bond saving the world from being watched.

Could it be that when we do nothing but watch, when we never pause to think, we set the stage for our own demise?

Please consider joining me, if not on a Zero For Six TV adventure, at least on the sensationally rewarding activity of pushing the “off” button. Even if you simply sit still and do nothing, you will begin to reconnect with your marvelous self. Who knows what will happen–you may make a jailbreak!

Zero For Six

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

It is time. For change. Now. And so, beginning June 1 I am embarking on four Zero for Six projects:

#1–Zero Non-Essential Spending for Six Months

#2–Zero TV Watching for Six Months

#3–Zero Fatiguing Foods for Six Months

#4–Zero Faithless Words for Six Months

I will be sharing process and progress in posts and podcasts, in hopes we will all change our lives–six months at a time. So, if this sounds interesting and intriguing to you, please share the good news, and thanks very much! And remember to take a “before” pic, as you and your life will look very different in six months, if you choose to join me in this adventure.

Tomorrow I will share my preliminary plans and procedures for implementation of this exciting next six months of my life!

You’re Not “Stuck” at Home. You’re Having the Time of Your Life, Homeschooling, That is!

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

The Home Front Show

Hello and welcome to all parents who are suddenly at home with their kids.  As a veteran homeschooler I have some thoughts, tips and downright excellent ideas for you.

  1.  Begin every day with “The P.J.’s of Power – a psalm, a proverb, Paul’s wisdom from something in the New Testament, and Prayer, and Praise, and then some of Jesus’ words.  If the kids are readers and awake (this is a lovely time for all of you to catch up on sleep by the way), instruct them to do the same, take notes, and let it all be done in P.J.’s!
  2. Make this something they truly enjoy, perhaps all around the table first thing, along with hot chocolate, and begin teaching table manners and conversation arts at the table.  Best of all, you are teaching them to love and enjoy God!
  3. Have all hands on deck for meals

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Blessing Blockers from Richard Roberts

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

file:///C:/Users/Owner/Downloads/Blessing%20Blockers%20Checklist.pdf.pdf

This is hugely helpful, a download I found at https://oralroberts.com/

Enjoy and be blessed! That’s all for now because I want to go back and read and re-read this.

Dastardly Doubt, Get Out!

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

It’s time to get back to basics, or, as in the case of so many Christians, to go there for the first time. So here are some basics:

  1. God’s accepted currency is faith; Satan’s is fear.
  2. Faith works via Love.
  3. Love never fails.
  4. Death and life are in the power of the tongue–you will have what you say.
  5. You must receive Jesus’ gift of forgiveness, and pass it on without reservation to others.
  6. Sins ruins everything, and doubting God is sin.
  7. He wants you to receive the victory over sin Jesus bought for you at Calvary–He’s for you!
  8. The prayer of faith avails much!

These basics are all based in Scripture, and to believe otherwise is insanity leading to death, and calling God a liar. Doubting victory is calling God a liar. In fact, it is believing the great deceiver, the father of lifes.

Dress it up any way you like, call it common sense, prudence, or whatever you want–fear is a lie.

Watch yourself-we all have to, all the time, because our enemy is good at his craft. Watch to see what you’re thinking: do you immediately believe and accept the defeat and the negative, and doubt the possibility of victory?

Your experience, education, and opinions do not matter. What your pastor and best friend think is not the issue. The issue is the Word of God Almighty, and if you’re not going to go with that, prepare for devastation in your life.

Once the devastation comes, you can continue in the crud thinking–blame God, refuse responsibility, accept defeat, and do the woe-is-me mantra. Or, you can change your wicked ways.

That’s right. It is wrong, wicked, perverse, and purely evil to call God a liar, and call what the liar Satan puts out, the truth.

If things aren’t going well, and maybe never have, God isn’t the one who missed it. Maybe someone doesn’t want the responsibility required for victory in Jesus. Jesse Duplantis, in I Never Learned to Doubt, says, “Doubt doesn’t want the responsibility of believing–doubt always seems to want to pass the buck or shift the blame–but it’s not OK.”

If we don’t get it, if things haven’t gone for us the way we prayed, hoped, expected–again, God didn’t miss it. Believe it or not, there’s something we missed, or don’t know, or haven’t patiently and persistently and immovably waited on. There is a lie we’re believing.

I told my husband recently, regarding healing in America, “If I’m the last person on earth standing and believing that God is healing our land, I will stand. If I’m the last person on earth who believes He wants to heal and bless His children, that He cannot lie, that Jesus’ blood bought us free-indeed freedom, I will stand.”

The enemy of our souls wants us to think we’re the last and only one, that it’s up to us, that’s it’s too little, too late. Such a stupid liar he is, and certainly no match for the God I serve.

Come along with me. The only choice is faith, the only path is Love–the victory-bringing, blood-bought Love of Jesus.

Pray with me: “Father we repent of doubting You, of misunderstanding You, of being ignorant of Who You are. Help us, Lord, to trust and obey, to hear and heed Your voice. Cleanse us from the unrighteousness of fear and doubt, from the pride that says we can do anything at all apart from You. Amen.”

Let Us Now Be Good Company

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

The French Café tells us we can frequent Parisian coffee shops of our choice, perhaps because of “the landlord’s personality, the clientele, the ambience, or the décor.”  In a rural setting we are told the décor of old country cafes is frugal, but that, “they often create their own atmosphere of romance and poetry with a remarkable economy of means.”

There is something particularly satisfying about creating our “own atmosphere of romance and poetry with a remarkable economy of means.”  You don’t need a new French Press to make coffee.  Indeed you can brew a satisfactory cup boiling it on the stovetop!

One of the best cups of coffee I’ve ever tasted was cheapo store brand coffee steaming hot out of a thermos.  I was in the back seat of my husband John’s truck, it was very cold outside, we were crossing a high mountain pass.  John was driving, my brother in the front seat with him, and my beloved, beloved sister-in-law sat beside me.  My sister-in-law is steady, to be depended upon to keep up her end of the positivity bargain at all times. I’ve been sharing meals with Liz since the seventh grade, and she hasn’t failed yet to be good and pleasant company, the kind of company that makes a meal a feast, in fact.

The flavor is enhanced by the setting and the company, so let’s all be sure we’re good company!

I was with good company last week driving with my daughter Rebekah and friend Pam when we got on that subject: politics–the fraudulent elections, disappointments being handed out by the Supreme Court (only Justice Thomas does not disappoint), traitors in Congress, small business woes, etc. Pam reached over and touched my arm. “I’m sorry,” she said, “for ranting about all that.”

But because she was ending all of it with her trust in God, with quoting and reminding us all of Psalm 37, with seeing all the good that is coming out of the bad (and there’s lots of it, especially in that Christians are humbly remembering who their Savior is), it wasn’t a rant. It was an air clearing and mutual exhortation among good company.

Keeping our eyes lifted doesn’t mean we don’t know what’s happening, or that we aren’t doing something about it. It just means we’re looking to our only hope. We’re keeping good company with good company.

Let’s enjoy life a little, and let me say it you and to myself again–let’s be good company.

Home-First Hospitality

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

Today’s Henri Nouwen Society offering spoke to my heart and I want to share it, then offer my thoughts, so please read beautiful Henri thoughts, and consider mine.

Henri:

Hospitality
Hospitality means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. . . . The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languages, dance their own dances; free also to leave and follow their own vocations. Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adore the lifestyle of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his own.

Bev’s:

I read these beautiful thoughts on hospitality, made a comment, and then considered the comments offered, where one wise man said in a nutshell, “One-on-one hospitality is the cure for the world’s ills.”

Let it begin at home. Let us be open to the wounds and ugliness of each others’ hearts and personalities. Let us seek reasons and ways to bless and pray for–not the world first–those with whom we share our dwellings. Let us, as Henri exhorts us to, ” . . . offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.”

Freedom. Let us emulate Christ by offering a “free indeed” hospitality. No, this doesn’t mean anything goes. Just Love.

Love doesn’t always keep still and quiet, any more than love mouths off in anger. Love abides in God, Who is Love, and seeks His ways, grace, understanding, wisdom, and even knowledge of what’s in the wounded and precious hearts with whom we live. Love is patient, kind, at peace, hospitable.

Hospitality is Love. Or is meant to be. Again, let it begin at home, where all good things begin and end, Amen.

Think on THESE Things

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

Let’s forget about forgetting about the negatives in the news, and let’s remember to forget the faults–the negatives, of those who matter–of our SIGNIFICANT other(s). Today is the perfect day to begin with our mates and ourselves and seek “like-mindedness” where it counts most–at home.

Division is running amok, rampant throughout the earth. Let us “Just Say No” to divison at home, beginning with saying “No” to finding fault with our mates. This means we look at what’s right, pray about what’s not, and let God have a go (unhindered by our “help”) at healing our beloveds (that includes ourselves).

I’m not talking about revving up our rah-rah engines with some positive confessions and personal improvement strategies, and telling our mates it’s time to get with our program, our GREAT new program! I’m talking about simply taking God at His word via knowing what His word actually says. About us and everyone else we’re given to love. About seeking to see with His eyes.

The Word of God doesn’t say everyone except our mate is fearfully and wonderfully made, to be loved and cherished, forgiven, set free, blessed. We are created to be as our Creator–blessors. We are not to take stock and find others, or ourselves, wanting. The Blood of Jesus took care of that. We must beware of the perversion in extending blessing to everyone on earth except our mate.

There are deep things in all our hearts, things that need healing, things that will never see the light of freedom without the power of God’s love. Anyone can look for and find fault. We are not to be “anyone”. We are to be the champion of our mate’s heart. Let us look at our mates as our first order of Love business, our first call of Love duty. And let us remember that the first order of business in Love, is Loving.

A Sack Full of Poison, aka “Meds”

~ Bev Parker ~ 2 Comments

We were shocked and appalled at the deterioration in my uncle when he came to visit. His dull eyes and countenance, shuffling gait, and inability to follow the conversation were noted, and then understood, as he pulled out a sack rattling with numerous bottles of prescription meds.

What to do or say? Experience says there’s nothing to be said or done. God, also known as “my doctor” has spoken. But then my uncle got a break. His son said, “You’re coming home with me and we’re getting you off this crap, or I’m taking you to the nursing home right now.”

My uncle chose to go home with his son and within weeks he was off the meds, onto right eating and supplements, and was his old (brand new!) self.

I liken this sack full of meds and the exponential damage done as one insult is added to yet another; one side effect is “treated” with yet another poisonous cocktail; this ruining of the body’s inherent ability to heal itself if given time, nutrition, nature’s remedies and most of all prayers of faith; I liken all this to torturing a free-market economy with the deadly “cure” of socialism.

It aint natural, and it won’t work. It never has and it never will.