She Judged Him Faithful

Recently I attended the funeral of a dear friend. His mother had passed on to Heaven, and we were invited to join the family as they celebrated her life. Her pastor spoke that day on behalf of the family and offered a message of hope. The scripture he used to describe her that day is still with me. It’s like it opened a locked door deep within my heart.

                                                                 "She JUDGED Him Faithful."

The pastor was comparing my friend's mother to Sarah, the mother of nations and one that judged her God faithful. I did not know my friend's mother but the descriptions given that day by her loved ones made me believe that she was an amazing mother and wife. I left the funeral hoping that the words spoken at my funeral would some day be like her's, one who judged her God faithfully.

Jesus and I have been talking about why this scripture won’t leave my mind, and He has been sweet to give me insight. I love it when He extends an invitation to talk when your least expecting it.  Below is what He has shown me so far.

“Beyond your pay grade,” is a term used in the military to inform someone that they don't have the rank to make certain decisions. I feel Jesus is always saying to me, Julie, this is above your pay grade. You can't make that decision. You don't know all the facts or hold the authority to make those decisions. I want to move on your behalf, but other things need to happen. It's not time yet.

The delay. Why the delay? I want things to go my way and in my time. I want to move out of the desert and cross over to the Promise Land. I want to be comfortable. I want to feel safe. I know this is not the way things work, so why am I always frustrated by the delay? The Bible was written to warn us of the delay and teaches us how to prepare and what to do in the delay.

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. 

But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33 NIV)

The ending will be amazing! I'm sure of that, but the trouble we experience along the way can be too much at times.

Two more years and suddenly he is free. Joseph went to prison because of the evil choices of his brothers. While in prison, he retains his integrity and abilities and after testing is rewarded with two more years of unjustified imprisonment — and then suddenly he's free. This happens so often in the Bible. Sometimes, unfortunate circumstances go on and on and on. You analyze them and pray about them, and they only get worse.

 Jesus tells us, "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority" (Acts 1:7 NIV).

That's a harsh answer when you're in prison. Joseph experiences two more years of separation, loneliness, injustice, and the appearance of abandonment in response to his obedience. What's the point God's trying to make? I'm not sure, but I do see that somehow all of the heroes of faith who have painful, messy lives end with God's stamp of glory upon them. He carries them through.

Sarah is another person who is presently teaching me to be patient. I keep thinking about the time she laughed at God. She was at an all time low when this happened. Twenty-five years had passed, and the promised child hadn’t appeared. There had been "talk" of the promise, but God never told her "when." As time slowly passed, she gave up on hope and her body’s natural ability to give birth. I can see her now, standing in the kitchen washing dishes. She stands close to the wall to eavesdrop on God and Abraham's conversation, waiting for the promise to be mentioned and the explanation of why they didn't get it. I wonder if she thought it was her fault. When the delay took its toll on her hope, she decided to make her own way. Her great idea was to get Abram to sleep with the maid. She became the judge and went way beyond her pay grade. She must have felt an overwhelming sense of shame for helping Abraham lose his hope and promise.

I imagine God was patiently waiting, holding out for the moment when Sarah felt fully pregnant with her hopelessness. He knew one mention of the promise would induce the long awaited labor of her barrenness. As she retreated to the kitchen she heard the promise and laughed. God heard her and asked about it, and she denied its existence. I think the laugh revealed a lie Sarah had come to believe about God — that He wasn’t faithful. He knew this was her struggle and wanted to remove the lie and replace it with truth. He saw and understood her humanness within her story of His eternal glory. Instead of judgment, He offered her mercy and gave her what He promised — His faithfulness.

Sarah's story is messy. She made many mistakes and struggled to hold on to her faith. She wasn't perfect, but God still loved her and made good on His promise. The fulfillment of her dream gives me so much hope. Our lives are about becoming within the delay. We become more like Jesus in the wait. Sarah's becoming fully bloomed in the book of Hebrews. Here we get to see how God saw Sarah during the delay.

"…she judged him faithful who had promised." (Hebrews 11:11)

When I look back at some of my heroes in the Bible, I see that I'm not alone in my suffering. I also get to see that my heroes are human and make many mistakes. They teach me that I don't have to live a perfect life to be greatly loved by God. I will mess up. I will let my loved ones down. I will disappoint myself over and over again. I will try to figure things out on my own and manipulate them for my good. I will fall and scrape my knees and bleed. I will need to give forgiveness and ask for it a million times this side of heaven. I will trip many times over the truth that I can't save or fix anyone. My messy life doesn't bother God. He knew my story before I did and still created me. Today, I am learning that I can't do anything without Him, but with Him all things are possible.

To me, this is a good picture of what He's doing in the delay:

So don’t be afraid: I’m with you.

I’ll round up all your scattered children,

pull them in from east and west.

I’ll send orders north and south:

“Send them back.

Return my sons from distant lands,

my daughters from faraway places.

I want them back, every last one who bears my name,

every man, woman, and child

Whom I created for my glory,

yes, personally formed and made each one.” (Isaiah 43:7-10)

What do you believe and why? - Trey Gowdy

"You've got to figure out what you believe and more importantly why you believe it." 

- Trey Gowdy

A few weeks ago I ran across this speech given by Trey Gowdy to the students of Liberty University. I decided to listen to it while I was pouring my 1st cup of coffee that morning. Normally I "T-R-Y" to pray before I let the chaos of the day in, but I was overtaken by the urge to listen to my new favorite Hero, Trey Gowdy!!! I love his heart that pursues truth and fights for justice.  I was deeply convicted by a question he asks his audience to answer: 

"You've got to figure out what you believe and more importantly why you 
believe it. It's never enough in politics or of any other sphere of persuasion to simply tell people what you believe you must know why you believe it."- Trey Gowdy

I thought to myself, I know what I believe and I think I know why I believe it. But I felt like I need to pray and ask Jesus what His thoughts were towards my convicted heart. I said, Jesus, I believe in you, but WHY do I believe in you? The first thought that came to my mind was John 3:16. I kind of laughed and said, really Lord. That's too easy. Everyone knows John 3:16!! Come on this has to be my thoughts.. give me yours..I waited a few minutes and then decided to look it up and read it again. Before I read it I felt like the Lord said trust me I'm going to highlight something in this familiar verse that you've never paid attention to before. Here is what He said. It's a little long but when I was finished reading it I felt like the Lord showed me how to pray for myself and for the Untied States of America. I was blown away by His faithfulness to answer my question WHY..

"This is how much God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son. AND THIS IS WHY: So that no one need be destroyed:by believing in Him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending His son merely to point and accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts is acquitted (Set Free); anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. AND WHY? Because of that persons failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him. "This is the crisis we're in: God- light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil addicted to denial and illusion hates God-light and wont come near it fearing a painful exposure. But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God- Light so the work can be seen for the God- work it is." - John 3:16-21

I felt like the Lord was showing me the Why was so not one of us would be destroyed by the evil of this world and by simply believing we could have a whole and full and lasting life now and into eternity. He came to bring light to our darkened world. I thought how easy, we simply believe! The other part of this scripture that stood out to me was the description of those who practice evil.. those who are addicted to denial and illusion!

As I watch our current events unfold today I cant help but think about the leaders who are addicted to denial and illusion. They manipulate truth and reality because they fear the painful exposure that will come when God's light exposes the evil. I have taken on this prayer for myself, my family and for the United States of America. "My prayer is God, Let there be light. Shine your light upon the darkness. I personally repent for my denial of the truth and disillusionment of reality. I also am willing to stand in the gap and pray this for my Nation and the great leaders You are raising up to shine your light and bring your truth." Again, I'm reminded that we do not place our hope in a political party or a person but in God and God alone. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, He will show us the way. He will expose the truth.

I think this is a prayer we can all pray that will bring unity back to the United States of America. Let truth expose the lies and wake us up to see the reality of our current circumstances. 

Let There Be Light- 

Waiting For My Job 42

"Champion"

Bryan and Katie Torwalt

This song brings prayer back into perspective. He is the Champion of our prayers! 

For years I have been dreaming of my “Job 42” moment. In Job 42, God turns the captivity of Job in the direction of deliverance and double restoration.

And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. (Job 42:10, KJV)

I’ve weathered through some rough seasons, and I’m ready to see a change. I’m weary and finding it hard to see new life.  I guess that is why God keeps reminding me of Job’s story. Job was an overcomer. He was a man of great patience who weathered a horrific season of loss. But, when I look at his life, I see the bigger picture of God’s story. I am reminded that the world we live in is at war against the spirit of God who lives in us. So, if I want deliverance, I need to seek God for His strategies to overcome.

At the beginning of this year I felt God saying, This will be the year of fun.

Yes, God. It’s about time. I just want to rest and have fun for a season.

I then heard Him say, You will have to fight for it. Fight for fun? I had waited and waited AND waited for Him to bring me to this very moment, but I didn’t think I would have to fight for fun. I didn’t have anymore fight in me, but that was the very place God wanted to meet me.

I heard the Lord say, Julie where is your heart?

I replied, “I don’t even know.”

He said, You’re weary.

I said, “Why?”

And this is what He showed me.

For the past two years, I have been learning to pray and to be an intercessor for others. I had grown weary along the way because I wasn’t seeing the answers I was looking for. One day in prayer the Lord led me to a verse I thought I knew by heart, but when I read it from The Message it shifted my perspective.

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. (Matthew 11: 28-30, The Message)

I began to cry. I was tired and didn’t know the culprit was religion. In this season of learning to pray, I let go of joy and picked up something that was never mine to carry. That something was judgment.

My process up to this point was praying for circumstances to change. I was judging the way circumstances should play out. The posture of my heart was in the wrong place. I was telling God what to do, but He wanted me to see the position of my heart. Unanswered prayers led me to weariness and unbelief. I found myself not wanting to pray anymore. If it didn’t work, then why pray, right? I was frustrated. But I found hope in the frustration knowing it was His way of letting me know I have more to learn. I confessed my feelings of wanting to give up, and He began to teach me a new way.

As I leaned in to learn, the Holy Spirit kept reminding me of Job 42, but that was frustrating as I have been waiting for so long and it felt like it would never be true for me. In that frustration, I asked myself a question: What put deliverance and redemption into motion for Job?

IT WAS PRAYER.

Not just any prayer, but prayer that came from a heart that was prepared and ready to pray for mercy.

Think about the progression of events: Job’s suffering kept him searching for deliverance. With the help of his friends, he sifted through all the possible reasons for his unjust suffering. His friends concluded it was his own fault. They judged him. This was the moment God was waiting for so He could speak truth.

God asks Job, Where were you when I created the Heavens and Earth? Where were you when I told the sun to rise this morning? Where were you, where were you, where were you?

I never really enjoyed reading this part of Job’s story because it feels like God is mad. I can identify with Job and his pain; to have God reply in this manner seems harsh.

Until, this morning, when God changed my perspective.

What if God’s point in His explanation for Job’s suffering was to teach him what J-O-B was Job’s and what J-O-B was God’s?

God reveals His Glory and Majesty. He is the creator of all things, and He is the only One who has the authority to judge. God gives Job his J-O-B in this circumstance, and that is to simply pray for his friends. The ones who blamed him for his own suffering. The friends who thought their J-O-B was to judge. The friends who most likely planted unseen seeds of bitterness in Job’s heart. God’s remedy for redemption was to dig up the seeds of judgment before they took root. He promised to restore Job only after he prayed for the restoration of his friends.

This teaches me that God’s heart is always after redemption. My job is to align my heart with His, so I can pray for the mercy needed to set me and others free.

What if the whole point is to pray for mercy? Wouldn’t that make perfect sense? The world we live in today fell when Adam and Eve agreed to be their own judges. They were hoodwinked into biting the forbidden fruit of judgment. With just one bite, their eyes were open to see shame, and we’ve been judging and blaming God ever since.

I think God’s heart in all of this was for me to see that judgment was not my job. I kept praying for God to judge those who were sinning against me. He showed me how that can be a double-edged sword. If I’m demanding Him to judge others, He in return has to judge me the same. Do I really want judgment? Maybe, maybe not. But what I do know is if He’s asking me to pray to have mercy on others then I’m probably going to get mercy myself. I’m thinking that’s a much better deal in the long run.

This revelation has changed my perspective on prayer. Prayer is a process that will lead me into a deeper relationship with my Heavenly Father by asking Him first what His perspective is on the matter and how my heart needs to change so I can align with Heaven and bring His will to earth. I think this is going to stretch and grow me in a wonderful way. This year of fun will be full of pulling down mercy from above that may put into motion my Job 42 moment.

And the LORD turned the captivity of Julie Peck, when she prayed for her friends: also, the LORD gave Julie Peck twice as much as she had before.

Climbing Everest

"Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So... get on your way."

Dr. Suess

"The summit is just a halfway point." 

-Ed Viesturs

I am in year twelve of the journey of living the loss of my four-year-old son. Day one of this trip looked impossible. Today, as I look back, it blows my mind how I've made it to this point without losing heart. Along the way, I have met many who have. They allowed the ending of their stories to be written by the thief who stole what was not his to steal.

I get it. I've been in their shoes. Life isn't fair, and when you're faced with this sobering reality, you must choose: Will I believe the thief, or will I believe the One who can redeem what the thief has stolen? The choice is as old as time (Adam and Eve were the first to exercise this choice).

In the midst of a tragic circumstance the choice isn't clear, and it isn’t easy.

Facing one of the cruelest realities of life, the death of my child, forced me to look beyond myself. My heart could not accept any form of human reasoning; none of it was big enough to hold the pain. What I needed could only come from above. I needed Jesus and the evidence Heaven offers me about death. His resurrection is the evidence, and our reconciliation is the future promise. This truth gave me hope, and helped me make a very powerful decision: I chose to allow God to write redemption into my story of loss. That choice has made all the difference.

I can see the difference now, but I remember a time when I saw only a mountain of problems. So many problems surface with grief. The first problem is learning to embrace grief and to mourn so you can receive comfort. We want to push grief far away because it requires us to feel the pain of loss. We don't want to hurt any more than we do already, so we rush through the process and miss the grace and comfort needed for healing. Grief also has a way of exposing all the other areas of brokenness in your life. Many blame grief for the problems that occur after loss, but it is my opinion that grief exposes problems that were there before the loss. Grief lays you bare. By welcoming God into your grief, He can multitask. He can heal your whole heart, not just part of it.

So, with this hope we choose His plan and accept the challenge to climb the mountain. He helps us build a team that will guide and support us during the climb. This team is made up of wise counsel and fellow climbers. These two components are essential for a safe and effective climb. But, even with their help, the climb is brutal and bloody; it is dangerous and daunting. In order to ascend, you will meet the monsters of grief and broken places. You will become overwhelmed and tired; you will question why you ever chose to put yourself through this pain; you will want to give up; you will scream and cry, but you must keep going because to turn around is fatal, and you want those who are following you to see that healing is possible. You want to challenge the impossibility of climbing to the summit of grief and making it there alive and being transformed by the journey.

Today, I've made it to the summit. I've scaled grief and brokenness and for the first time feel peace and see fruit. I feel I have been given a second chance to do life.

I let out a sigh of relief, and I enjoy the view from the top. I sit for a moment and allow the sun to shine upon my face. I enjoy the victory. I rest. At first, I think the battle is over. But, now I'm sensing that the battle isn’t finished and that I need to be as intentional on the way down as I was on the way up.

 It’s a round trip. Getting to the summit is optional, getting down is mandatory. (Ed Viesturs)

The Lord is now teaching me it's a round trip. An experienced mountain climber, Ed Viesturs, says when you plan to climb a mountain you must remember, "It's a round trip. Getting to the summit is optional, getting down is mandatory.” If you make it all the way to the summit but die making your way back down, the whole trip is meaningless. So, how hard could it be going down? I've done the most difficult work so what else could there be?

While enjoying my summit perch, I watched the movie, Everest. The movie spoke to my spirit about the next part of my journey. There are many life lessons in the film, but the one that stuck out the most was:

         More people die on the way down the mountain than on the way up.

Wow, can you believe that? It baffled me. I felt the Lord saying, Julie, pay close attention to that statistic. The way down will not be easy. Remember, you've spent 30 years living in a way that built the mountain you just summited. Now it's going to take intentionality in learning how to live differently.  In the descent of your mountain, you will still be learning.
I thought the point of the climb was to summit. I was wrong. There is more.

After the success of a hard climb, we often let our guard down. With the goal completed, some fall into depression or sin from boredom or complacency. You've battled the loss of a loved one, wrestled with the worries of a prodigal, let go of your home, and now you've reached the summit, and life is less chaotic. Now it's time to head back down. So you think it's all downhill from here. With your pride inflated by your recent victories and your physical body weak from the climb, you begin to descend. You think, I've got this now. I don't need anyone's help, and I'm sure they are tired of praying for me. You quit counseling and let go of your community. These are the two major mistakes, and they can be deadly.

The challenge coming down the mountain is, Can I live in peace after I've lived in the chaos of the battle for so long? Remember, the summit is just a halfway point. I think the difference between life and death after you climbed your Everest is sticking with the plan you put into place to climb it.

Today, I feel the Lord giving me my tools for the descent. He is showing me that prayer will be my most valuable tool. I have been learning that daily aligning with Him brings His peace and authority. I have also learned about my role in interceding for family and friends. He wants me to join with Him to help bring Heaven’s plans to earth. Another valuable tool for the descent is watching for pride. Many times it sneaks in through the door of entitlement. I've worked this hard so I deserve (blank), or I've come this far, and this is all I get? I'm quitting and going after what I want. Marriages fail, friendships are severed, and fortunes lost because we let the summit experience be the end. It's not. It's a round trip, and we need to make it down the mountain for the summit to mean anything to us and those following us.

I want my climb to mean something, and I don't want to die on the way down. There is too much at stake. I will be preparing for the descent and will keep you updated on what I learn along the way.