Monday Morning Cover to Cover

UPDATED COMMENTS: Summer started this week and guess what the first phone call of my summer was? A job for me. I'll post soon. I answered your comments below.
We've been at Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches at a basketball tournament as soon as school was "OUT" on Friday. Britt's team came in 2nd out of all the high schools there. Pretty good. Lost in the championship game by 3 points. Good experience. Looking forward to getting back to blogging as I've been gone for a couple of weeks.
The magnolias and azaleas and begonias captivated me in my 2-hour campus walk. I jogged up & down those stairs a few times too! And my beautiful God gently spoke to my heart about what He was doing in my life detaching me from dependence on anyone but Him. Matt 20:28.


As we read through Proverbs 19 - 31 this week, there were three verses that jumped out at me in our chronological readings. Leave a link to your blog if you posted about it. Leave a comment about a Proverb or about A N Y T H I N G. Look forward to hearing from you!

A RAGING HEART….
Proverbs 19:3. “A man’s own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the LORD." I sat watching my PE class for an hour and I quietly wept as I thought about this verse. My God was speaking to me for my heart was raging against Him over an issue in my life. No good! No good! Yet I was boasting about it too! Proverbs 20:14. I had to work through it. Still working through it. So grateful to my forgiving God for grace greater than my sin. Sometimes I think way too shallow about sin. I was reading a book at school this week and it nailed me to the gym floor: “Selfishness, which does make us unattractive, never gets the blame. Or if it does, we think of it as something that needs to be CORRECTED rather than FORGIVEN. All this is nothing more than a hell-inspired set-up to depend on a 'works salvation.' Here’s something to do and if you do it well enough, you’ll find life.” The multitude of maxims in Proverbs was not written just to inform us what “to do.” Don’t give full vent to your anger. 29:11 Don’t speak in haste. 29:20. Plan evil and clap your mouth shut. 30:32. Don’t spend your strength on women. 31:3. But they are inspired and breathed by the Holy Spirit. Every verse interprets another. Scripture interprets Scripture. Can’t take it out of context and put it on our problems like a band-aid. Proverbs show us from beginning to end that treasured knowledge in our lives is living in the fear of the LORD. “Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” Proverbs 31:30. God is deepening my definition of sin, but He is also widening His definition of grace over me.

A REFLECTIVE HEART…
Proverbs 27:19“As water reflects a face, a heart reflects a man." There are two times, among several actually, when my life literally fell apart. People call it a dark night of the soul but that sounds too spiritual for what I went through. God brought Proverbs 21:1 to mind in 2000 when we experienced a family dilemma. Over that year, we watched our beautiful God hold my family in His grip and direct our lives in ways we could not imagine! It happened again in 2006 when I thought I would not even be able to go on with life. My beautiful God intervened and the king’s heart, who terminated our job, was in God’s hands. We are still waiting for God to direct us where to go, what to do. But HE has done far more than I could have ever hoped, ever imagined! God is directing all our lives “like a watercourse wherever He pleases.” So, I am reflecting on Proverbs 21:31 which says that the horse may be ready for battle but victory belongs to our God. So many people have said to me in our job loss that God has something better for you, something bigger. Maybe not. Victory is HIS. Surrender is mine. We do know that He has a better place for us here. And He has gone to prepare a better place for us all.

A RULING HEART
Proverbs 24:12 "Does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?” spoke to me. When people tell me that they didn’t mean to hurt me---that wasn’t their intention....or, they don’t quite see it the way that I did, it makes me feel small sometimes. Doesn’t matter what they did. I need to deal with the fray of my own heart. I can’t say: Well, I don’t know anything! I need to “let go” of proving others wrong, proving my point. I need to “let go” of being vexing and controlling the situation. God perceives the picture of what is going on in my life. Leave it on His lap. What passion rules my heart? What do I want more than the love of my Christ at this moment? What really rules our heart in all our arguments, in all our soliloquies, in all our pursuits?