Karen Moore

Therefore, as God’s choice, holy and loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.  Be tolerant with each other and, if someone has a complaint against anyone, forgive each other. As the Lord forgave you, so also forgive each other. And over all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

Colossians 3: 12-14

God Chose You!

Sure, God could have passed you by.  He could have decided that you had too many issues, too much ego, too many sins to deal with.  He could have thought you were just too much trouble.  He could have.  But he didn’t.

In fact, he looked at you with the eyes of compassion and thought how wonderful it would be if you could see yourself as the whole and beautiful person he sees when he looks at you.  He thought about your willingness to be tender at just the right moments and your ability to tolerate those who aren’t quite like you.  He saw you in a way that raised you up above the turmoil and the mess that life can be and he determined that everything about you was good.  He chose you.

He forgave you those things that you keep buried inside, hardly able to forgive yourself.  He forgave you the little sins of omission, the little promises you made to him, but didn’t keep.  He forgave you the sins of commission that he knows you learned from and needed help with afterwards.  He forgave you for so many things.   He wants you to understand the power of forgiveness and the reason why you must forgive others who have offended you.  He did all of that for you because he chose you.

Today, He wants you to go out and walk in love, share your heart and do whatever you can to bring peace and kindness to just one other person.  You have been forgiven, loved, and entrusted with this one job.  You have been chosen. Show him what you’re doing with his unending love for you.  Make him proud!

Excerpt from Wellspring by Karen Moore

I love this Psalm (103) that says, “But the Lord’s faithful love is from forever ago to forever from now for those who honor him.”

Wow!  In a world where so many things feel like they could last simply disappear, that’s a comforting thought.  How many of us thought we had a lasting love when we got married, or that we had a lasting career when we left college?  How many of us thought we had friendships that would always be there, or talents we could count on to keep us going?

The fact is that life is indeed an ever-changing, ever-evolving and growing experience.  Nothing is really permanent.  I remember being young enough that I couldn’t imagine being an old woman.  I remember thinking opportunities were endless and if one faded, another would easily take its place, like springtime grass after a rain.  I remember thinking people I loved would always be there and life itself would be carried out in some neat, orderly, predictable way.  Stop the music!  Fast forward to today…oh, my…but nothing is permanent that I can touch, see, or feel.  Only one thing is apparently possible from “forever ago to forever from now.”

That message comes as a promise because it reminds us that there is always a reason to feel good, to feel accomplished and special.  We can look forward to tomorrow, even if our tomorrows are not shaping up the way we expected.  In fact, the slippery slopes of life may well serve to teach us all the ways to hold on…to truth…to love…to each other.

So what will we do?  Shall we spend our days mourning our lost youth, our passing opportunities, those things that didn’t last even when we were so certain they would?  Or, will we look at today and be grateful for what it contains, what new possibilities it might bring, what moments of joy may come?  Imagine the excitement of your Creator as He looks at you, knowing the gifts and surprises and treats that are already prepared for you here and now.  Imagine what fun it is to see your child discover those treats and see the joy on a smiling face when it happens.  Picture a child searching for beautiful colored eggs on Easter morning and then finally finding the beautiful basket made just for them.  Squeals of delight ensue.  That’s the picture to hold of what God has for you…beautiful things to discover, some surprises that even you couldn’t imagine.

You’re in a great place today…fully loved…fully known, from forever ago to forever from now.

They’re everywhere…the ads and labels that say, just scratch off this circle and “you may be our next big winner!”  Or maybe the enticement comes under the cap of the next screw off coke bottle, or the Publisher’s Clearing House or even the fundraiser at church.  Everywhere someone is appealing to you to risk a little to see if you can win a lot.  Most of us love the momentary excitement of the possibility, that split second idea that we could win.  We might actually buy the one scratch off ticket that will hit the headlines tomorrow as we  prepare for all the ways we’ll spend that incredible sum of money.

We all want to win, no matter if we actually already have enough money or if we don’t.  We may not even be driven so much by the money as the absolute joy of having that one big story to tell for the rest of our lives about how we won.  We can’t wait to be the envy of the block, because everyone loves a winner.

Now there’s the good news!  You are already loved because you are a winner!  You won the lottery of life the moment you took a breath and you won the lottery of heaven, the moment you recognized that your Creator gave you a winning ticket, a way into the high rollers arena.  You can get past the gatekeepers and breeze your way right on into the throne room.  You’re a VIP and you’re so big that no one is even impressed with how much money you have. In fact, they don’t even care what you did for a living.  They care more about what you did for the living!  What got you into the throne room was knowing your winning status and sharing your abundance of joy and laughter, your heart of gold, and your amazing ability to make another person feel the presence of God.

How will you play your cards then?  How will you share your vast good fortune?  It may be that you won’t make much of an impression by one more generous donation to your favorite cause, or if you become the president of your own little empire.  It may be that you will only have to do one thing, share the secret of what it means to be an “instant winner!”   Oh, my, but there’s a thunderous applause coming your way.  Yes, go ahead and scratch off one more number…you’ve already won!

April 15th has long been the dreaded tax day in the USA.  Of course, this year we get until the 17th to file on time.  Whether it’s taxes, or some other area of life where you feel slightly squeezed or slightly off kilter, it still holds true that the attitude we hold toward any event can make all the difference.  I borrowed an excerpt from my Wellspring devotional to share with you today.  See if it resonates with you.

“Happy are people who are hopeless, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

“Happy are people who grieve, because they will be made glad.  “Happy are people who are humble, because they will inherit the earth.

Matthew 5: 3-5

It may be hard to grasp the real beauty of the Beatitudes, but it’s easy to see that life carries one choice no matter what we’re going through.  We can have an attitude of woe, or we can have an attitude of joy based on belief that in due course, everything will indeed be well again in the Lord.

If we look at this in an ABC style, we might think of A as the attitude we will adopt.  When we feel without hope, when our dreams come falling down, when all the plans we’ve made have not come to fruition, we still have reason to rejoice.  We have reason to believe that in due time God will raise us up and we’ll get a first row seat in the kingdom of heaven.

When sorrow stops us dead in our tracks, when we feel numb with the pain of loss, whether it’s someone close to us, or the loss of a job or an ideal, we can focus on what is ahead, knowing that God has every intention of making sure we are smiling again soon.

Perhaps the B part of our attitude adjustment then is to believe that God will indeed follow through with his plans to give us the kingdom, to see us smile, and to grant us a more abundant life on the earth.  Believing is the key to it all.

Finally the C part of our attitude adjustment is Christ himself.  He is the reason we can have a positive attitude about anything life hands us.  It is because of his love for us, his sacrifice, his willingness to stand in the gap for us, that we can call God our father.

Life may feel a little less taxing, if we can just adjust the way we choose to see it.  Today is your day to be happy.

 My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they reach their end without hope. Remember that my life is wind.

Job 7: 6-7

Your life might seem like some kind of never-ending soap opera where one day you’re on top, the star of the show, and then the next week, you’re somehow the villain in a comedy of errors that even Shakespeare would envy.  It’s an incredible thing to really pay attention to your days and look at not only where you’ve been, but where you hope to go next.  For those of you having birthdays, remember that the blazing candles melting onto your frosting are simply brief glimpses from the light of what was.  It’s really the blank spaces on your cake that bring new options, raise new possibility and are frosted with new joys.  How will you fill those spaces this year?

For those of us awaiting birthdays on the calendar, this is the day to shine.  This is the day to create a new light so that when your candles blaze on your celebration day, you’ll see their beauty, the reminder of all you’ve already brought to the world and the chance to keep glowing.  As the world turns, as your days turn from early morning hopes to late night news, be aware of this moment, this one chance to become even more authentic and to share your gratitude for life with the One who knows you and wants you to live in joy and abundance.

We recognize with Job how fleeting life is, how quickly it melts away taking our dreams and our fine intentions with it.  Perhaps one of God’s gifts is that our span of life should be long enough to give us a taste of all that He has, but not so long that we forget Him in the process.  Choose to bring God into every area of your life today.  As one writer put it,

“Take the life you’ve been given

And give it your best,

Think positive thoughts

And let God do the rest.”

Whether you join in or sit back, the world continues to turn faster than a weaver’s shuttle, but you were designed beautifully in every fiber of your being.  Give God the glory.

If I shove  the two words “My Theology” a bit closer together and let go of an E, I realize that I’m left with mythology.  As a faith based person, it’s interesting to me how varied any of our views are about what we believe.  Personally, I’ve always thought it didn’t matter exactly how we choose to practice our faith as long as our faith is grounded in Christ.  That belief alone keeps us connected to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and God’s will for our lives.  At least, that’s what my theology says.

I bring up the idea of the myths of  our faith because I realize that we all carry around opinions, life experience, hearsay, and whatever else we throw into the pot of our faith content.  Now, this seems fine until we run across the places that are more difficult.  For example, in a conversation with a very dear Christian friend of mine who suffers the pain of Fibromyalgia, I was astounded to hear her describe some people of faith who believe that she has the “Devil’s” disease, and that people who get that do so because they did something wrong.  Whew!  I guess there’s not one of us who doesn’t have Fibromyalgia then.

Of course, this brings to mind the story of Jesus and those who wanted to stone the woman caught in adultery.  Jesus said, “Anyone here who has never sinned can throw the first stone at her.”  No stones were thrown that day, and yet, how often do we find an opportunity to throw stones at each other even cloaked in our beliefs?

Fortunately, God sees our motives from the heart and sees us covered with the grace of a resurrected Jesus, so even when we walk around among the stones being lofted over our heads all day long, He alone knows who we are and what it is we hope to be for Him.  Perhaps it’s my mythology that wants us to be kinder to each other, more supportive and less inclined to hurl verbal slingshots, but somehow it seems that those of us who profess Christ, might want to really strive to honor Him by the ways we acknowledge and love each other without labeling each other or offering judgments.

My theology as I understand it, isn’t stony at all…it’s woolly…’cause I’m just the sheep of an awesome Shepherd, who forgives me every time I go astray.  That’s what I believe anyway and I’m pretty sure there’s no “mythstake” in that.

After watching the Academy Awards, I had to get myself out to see The Artist.  I finally did so this past weekend and I have to say I loved it!  Whether it was the nostalgic feel of an era lost to our culture today, or the incredible expressions that actor Jean Dujardin was able to create to share his happiness and his intense sorrow, or the sheer artistry of the movie itself, it was a joy to see.

Whatever the reasons we might like the movie, most of us can relate to the transition that has to be made when the work we’ve done our whole lives, no longer seems valuable to anyone.  If we get to the age or stage when our expertise, once sought after, is no longer even appreciated, it ushers in an immense feeling of  loss.  It’s hard to remember why we spend so many years doing what we do if at the end it doesn’t really matter, or we’re just anachronistic, or simply out of the game.  In some way, we all hit this wall one time or another.  After all, it happens to moms who’ve spent their whole adult lives nurturing children, selflessly giving, and then suddenly finding themselves in an empty nest, their once important role, no longer needed.  It happens to people who lose all they have to the stock market or through illness and then only focus on their limitations, forgetting what they can still do.

It happens in the technical world, every day, so that yesterday’s innovation, is almost obsolete by tomorrow.  So what cue can we take from The Actor and our own starring life role.  How can we prepare ourselves for the ever changing, often challenging transitions of life?  The Actor did what we might do.  He walked through the process from disbelief to denial, to total grief.  He just couldn’t imagine that he could be left behind and yet the evidence mounted by the moment that he was no longer needed.

In the movies as in life though, options are given and people come along who help us reinvent ourselves, redefine our expertise in ways that bring new opportunities.  We learn to either speak up or dance.  The Actor just couldn’t bring himself to speak, but he knew what it meant to give the performance of his life, and so he danced.  He danced his way into the hearts of a whole new audience, one that still needed him and opened its arms to him.  The lesson then is this.  The world is changing and we each have to make a choice, sit it out or dance.   We can lament what was and live in the past, or we can take all our expertise, all our challenges, and all our God-given talent and learn to sing a new song or dance.  It could be the greatest step we ever take.  There’s always a new you waiting in the wings.  What’ll it be?  Reinvent the dance?  You’re on!

With apologies to Oswald Chambers and his classic devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, I wanted to address a struggle.  Perhaps it’s simply my struggle and you won’t really relate to it.  The struggle is all about that word “utmost.”  What does it mean in today’s world to do your utmost and what do you expect from God’s highest?  Of course, the hope is that we’re always growing and changing and getting closer to becoming what God dreamed we’d become.  The hope is that we want to know more of God.  I’m thinking at best, I give God my almost, my attempt to do better, to see people as He sees them, valuing them and loving them inspite of them.  I trust that He has to do that with me.

The fact is, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t swear on a stack of Bibles that I give my utmost to know Him, or even my utmost to life.  After all, life often shreds you so finely you aren’t really clear if God is actually near and so at best you make feeble attempts to draw closer to Him, hoping against hope that He is truly there.  Regardless of my futile attempts however, I believe that God always operates from His Highest.  He doesn’t have days when He’s slacking off a bit because He’s worn out by the noise of the Universe or the weight of the world that literally rests on His shoulders.  He doesn’t take a break from  hearing my prayers, even ones I’ve prayed for years still waiting for the answers.  He doesn’t get tired of giving and loving and being God.

Giving my almost may work for a while.  It may be that I get a glimpse of God’s glory and His love when I give even that much.  He encourages me, even when I give a little.  He connects with me the moment I get online, never making me wait or go through several messages and then putting me on hold whenever I make an attempt to draw more closely to Him.  He is always there…always operating at His Highest!  Imagine that!

I’m in the process of writing a new devotional book, one that centers itself on the reasons we have to be grateful every single day.  It’s the truth that if we only strive to count our blessings, we could conceivably count every waking moment and never run out of things to be thankful for.  After all, we just rose from a comfy bed with a big warm blanket, had a great cup of coffee and found ourselves in the midst of others who care about us.  That’s a good place to start when you’re counting blessings.  Today, though, I have to count this blessing.  The blessing that comes from my almost and mostly feeble attempts to draw near to God and the fact that He embraces my attempts, hugs my spirit and loves the almost me so completely it’s overwhelming.  Sure, He tugs at my sleeve and hopes my heart will desire even more, that it will truly want to go from almost to utmost.  I love this idea from Charles Spurgeon that says, “He who counts the stars and calls them by their names, is in no danger of forgetting His own children.  He knows your case as thoroughly as if you were the only creature He ever made, or the only saint He ever loved.”

Perhaps that’s the reason to keep trying, to keep moving toward giving Him your utmost.  After all, we always try to please the ones we love.

May His highest bring you great joy today!

I don’t know about you, but I sure saw a white light last week as I watched the celebration of the beloved Betty White at her 90th birthday party.  What an inspiration!  I used to wonder how Moses lead people to the promised land when he was already a ripe old guy, or how Abraham and Sarah welcomed a child when they were old.  Imagine Sarah was Betty’s age when she had Isaac.  Do we get it yet that God can do anything and when it serves His purpose, He does!

I loved watching the veterans of the TV and film industry share their hearts and their wit with Betty, who took it all with grace and love.  She is a household word for trust and goodness.  Getting her endorsement on a product that is meant to offer wholesome goodness makes it a winner.  She’s lived fully, never giving up, suffering losses of some of the people she’s loved most in the world, and yet reaching out to save animals and give back to society.  She’s impressive!

So, as I mused about her birthday celebration, I couldn’t help reflecting on how often of late I’ve groused about having another birthday as though every candle in the cake was just another indicator that too many years had already been worn by this woman.  What could there possibly be left?  Whew!  What a silly thought!  I’m nearly a teenager in Betty White years so I must have a lot more to do, a lot more to become, and a lot more to learn.  I’m not a household word yet, so I may not be doing product endorsements, but surely God has plans for me too.  I see the light, I see the White light.  It’s time to do something more, not stop. It’s time to lead people, or bring new baby ideas into the world.  It’s time to sparkle and glow and love and give.  Wow!  It’s prime time!

Thanks to Betty White, a truly amazing woman, a gift to the world today and a real inspiration.  Thanks to the God of the universe who actually doesn’t much concern Himself with how old we are in body as long as we’re not so old in mind we’ve forgotten how to be of any use to Him.  We’re on the planet because we’re meant to make a difference, to add our unique character to the role we play just as clearly as Betty White has acted in her real life roles and TV roles.  We’re here to give the performance of our lives and we’ve all got a shot for the EMMY.

Yes, I think I’m going to go for it!  Let your light shine today!

It’s still early in the New Year and even if it wasn’t, you have an opportunity to help make your own dreams come true.  As we consider the vision Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had for America, the dreams he had for causing us to see each other as human beings with similar needs, regardless of our race or creed, we might want to ponder something.  What is your vision?  What is my vision?  What do we dream?

Habbukuk 2:2 says, “Write a vision and make it plain upon a tablet.”  When God spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai he did just that.  He wrote his vision on two tablets and made it plain.  Hundreds of years later, we still know what his vision was.  Will anyone know your vision a few short years from now?  Maybe it’s time to get it down on your IPad.

Of course, we weren’t all designed to be visionaries.  We weren’t all meant to lead others to any kind of promised land and yet, we all have dreams.  A friend of mine recently had cataract surgery and one of her comments about the process was that when it was over, she could see colors more vividly than she had been able to see them ever before.  She could see those colors almost as though they had life itself, they were so vibrant. This is awesome because she’s an artist and already sees things more clearly than many of us.   I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure I’m not seeing things  so vividly they come to life.  My vision is blurry and that gives me pause.

Though I’m not fond of confessing my flaws, I share this to suggest that we have a new opportunity today, right now to change our direction and create a new vision.  We can make it our focus and our intentional direction.  If you’re not clear even what your focus might be, than spend seven (one of God’s perfect numbers) days with the intention of meeting God at the same time each morning until you are certain that you can afix your vision to a precise target.  Once you do that, look at what is preventing you from moving forward and let it go.  Look at what you need to get there and go get the tools.  Look at where you expect to go and by this time next year, your dreams may well be on the way to coming true.

Keep dreaming, keep seeking what God has for you.  The fact is, He has a vision for your life…always has, always will.  He is a Master of all things and can help you get it done.  For your own sake, write your vision and make it plain.   You’ll see much more clearly what a vibrant life you’re meant to have!

I’m working on mine too.  Thanks for all those who have gone before us and reminded us that dreams are worthy of our attention.