What Makes Your Heart Sing

Today on Rise@5, our early morning Bible Study, the teacher raised a similar question, what brings you peace?  We were asked to write our thoughts during a two minute timed interval.  I did and continued to write long after the call was completed.  I wrote a page full of things that both bring me peace and make my heart sing. 

 

My list in part -- the Word, speaking, reading, meditating ... quietness, peaceful solitude, soft instrumental music ... books, a good book ... lights especially night lights that seem to flicker, as seen from my bedroom view of the city ... flowers on my deck, in my yard, throughout my home, in my office, wherever ... sitting in front of my fireplace watching the flames as the burning (gas) logs seem to snap, crackle, and pop ... water whether in a pond, lake, river, ocean, observed from the deck of a cruise ship or riding the river in a friend's pontoon, in San Francisco sitting on the dock of the bay ... observing the sunset standing on a rocky crag overlooking the Pacific ocean in Lima, Peru; this gigantic ball of yellow gold appeared to be settling into the water as far as I could see both to my left and right ... the squirrel(s) that comes early morning to look for hidden nuts in the flower pots on my deck ... my computer screen with daily changing nature scenes ... projects and assignments that unfold as planned ... revelation and answers from God to the issues of life ... children ... an ongoing list ... .

What brings you peace?  What makes your heart sing, what people, thoughts, stories, memories?

A BIG GAP

Have you ever considered how the Scriptures are filled with many, many great and precious promises?  Peter writes how we have been given everything we need for life and godliness (see 2 Peter 1:3).  Have you further considered how, oftentimes, there is a BIG GAP between your prayer for the promise and the realization of the promise in your life? Remember how David was anointed king many years before becoming king. Remember how King Saul spent years trying to kill David amid the fact that God had promised the kingdom to David.  Remember God's promise to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and much later to Moses that the land would be given to them.  They never received the promise.  God also never gave the land to the people, they had to fight for it.  In all of these situations, there was a BIG GAP between the promise and the fulfillment.

 

Even so today, life has not changed for us.  There is likely a BIG GAP between your prayer and the answer, the facts of the matter and the truth of God's Word, your confession and its fulfillment, God's yes and your amen.  Since the beginning of this year, one of my confessions has been Ephesians 3:20 where God promises to do exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask or imagine.  Recently, I was told by my insurance company that my car was being totaled.  They would pay $8,000 less than was owed on the car. Reminded God of His promises to me.  Very quickly found out that gap insurance which I didn't know I had would cover the difference.  Went to the dealership same day to get another car.  Completed a deal where I got a new car paying $100 per month less in a three year lease than I was previously paying in a four year lease.  Yes, there was a BIG GAP between my confession and its fulfillment.  Thank you Father for the fulfilled promise.  Thank you Jesus for the BIG GAP.

But God

On this past Monday, I had a but God experience. If you're thinking, so what's a but God experience.  It's when something happens in a situation or circumstance that is normally impossible, out of the ordinary, highly unlikely in the natural scheme of things.  It's when God intervenes to alter the natural order of things.  It's when you experience what you absolutely know to be a miracle. It's mind boggling.  For me, it was all of the above and life-saving.

In the morning after the gym and breakfast and a two mile walk in the park, I was in the car on the way from downtown to get the car washed. Traveling south on 20th Street, I began to feel sleepy, very sleepy.  Let the window down, and confessed I'm awake and alert.  The next thing I heard was this loud crash, saw a concrete wall up close, and white airbags deployed, all in one split second. Oh my God, I've crashed into a wall. The impact knocked the car back into one lane of northbound traffic. Put the car in park, turned off the ignition, picked up my phone from the floor, grabbed my purse, and got out.  Heard a woman's voice asking if I were okay?  Strangely unshaken and questioning what just happened, I responded, yes I'm fine.  And I was.

What happened, I was thinking then just as you probably are now?  I went to sleep, foot on accelerator, car traveled across three lanes, two of them oncoming traffic, hit a concrete retaining wall, and was pushed back into one lane of oncoming traffic.  But God, I hit no other car, no other car hit me.  But God, the passenger side of the car hit the wall sustaining major damage from the impact.  But God, I sustained NO injuries. 

The following day God reminded me of how His Word never returns void or empty, and accomplishes the purpose for which it was sent.  I remembered my daily prayer confession of Psalm 91 for the past 15+ years.  I am especially mindful of the last three verses personalized to me, Psalm 91:14-16 -- I will rescue her, protect her, be with her in trouble, deliver her, satisfy her with long life, and show her my salvation.  But God, THANK YOU!!!

 

Pause

Pause, a button on recording equipment and an action taken by humans, means a temporary stop, break, time to reconsider, to linger, breather, interruption, lull. As we learn from Ecclesiastes 3:1, there is a time for everything. So if there is a right time for pause, there must be a wrong time.  If there is a right way or a right place to pause, there would also be a wrong way and a wrong place.  Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 8: 5b that the wise heart knows the proper time and procedure for every matter. 

Remember when Moses paused to cry out at the Red Sea and was asked by the Lord why he was crying out to him.  His command was to go forward, to move on (see Exodus 14:15). As with Moses and the Israelites at the Red Sea, we sometimes find ourselves pausing, stopping, and taking a break at the wrong time.  Even when facing a formidable foe, a major obstacle or hurdle, or a mountain too high to climb, we are called to listen closely and carefully for the still small voice of the Lord telling us when to pause and when not to.

When the traffic signal changes to green for you, have you taken a pause which kept you from being broadsided by the driver speeding through a red signal?  Have you paused or hesitated before responding in a conversation, and that pause kept you from saying the wrong thing?  On the other hand, has a pause or too long a stop caused you to miss a God ordained opportunity?  Holy Spirit leads you to pray for another, and your pause, your wait keeps you from making the call?  A pause as simple as hitting the snooze button when the alarm goes off causes you to be late for work, miss a meeting, get caught up in the traffic rush, make your child late for an important test in first class, be late for church and miss a move of the Holy Spirit who showed up at the appointed time? 

Selah – pause, stop and think about it!  I pray for hearts of wisdom to know the proper time to pause and the proper time not to pause.