Ever Get Tired Bearing Someone’s Burdens?

Ever Get Tired Bearing Someone’s Burdens?

by | Feb 2, 2015 | Bible Study

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Joshua 22:3-4 For a long time now—to this very day—you have not deserted your brothers but have carried out the mission the Lord your God gave you. Now that the Lord your God has given your brothers rest as he promised, return to your homes in the land that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you on the other side of the Jordan.” [Numbers 32 reveals that Moses’ first choice for the eastern tribes would have been for them to settle with the rest of the Israelites west of the Jordan. Still, they kept their promise to help their brothers.]

Quick context: This is Joshua speaking to the the Reubenites, Gadites and half tribe of Mannaseh (eastern tribes) whose homes were opposite the rest of the Israelites on the other side of the Jordan. The Lord instructed these eastern tribes to help their brothers and sisters cross the Jordan River and settle them in the land of Canaan. They’d completed the task and now Joshua was releasing these tribes to return home.

For a long time now

I appreciate Joshua’s notation of time here. He didn’t give months or dates, just hey, this has been a long one! I wonder how long you’ve been bearing someone else’s burdens, helping them across their Jordan? Has guiding them into the place of God’s will felt like a seemingly indefinite journey? Maybe you’ve had to give up some of your own comforts and familiar surroundings to accomplish this? Take encouragement from this passage: The Lord hasn’t lost track of time! He knew it had been a long time for the eastern tribes and the author of Joshua details this. Also, for some New Testament encouragement, the Lord will not forget your labor of love (Heb 6:10).

Sometimes it’s about what you don’t do

Joshua’s wording is telling here. “You have not deserted your brothers…” I don’t know if you’ve ever been abandoned, left or deserted by someone you loved or depended on, but the pain of abandonment has to be one of the deepest of the human experiences. So it encourages me that all the way back in the Old Testament God delighted in seeing his people not desert one another.

Commitment to one another is important to God. Praise Him for this.

For the eastern tribes to have left the other Israelite tribes would have gone against the very mission God gave them. Practically speaking sometimes not deserting simply means showing up. Just hanging in there. Being present. You don’t necessarily have to whip out the life-changing “word”, have the extravagant dinner ready, come up with the Bible study lesson, look stylish while you’re helping out… Sometimes serving someone is as simple as not going anywhere.

When you’re free to go

Joshua says “Now…return to your homes”. God’s assignments don’t typically last our entire lives. The Lord puts start and end times on our missions. It’s not our responsibility to co-dependently carry someone forever. Once the people we’re ministering to, encouraging, guiding are settled in the place the Lord has for them we can be released (when the Lord says so, of course.) When it was time for the eastern tribes to return home they hadn’t deserted a soul because they’d left their brothers and sisters in the Lord’s rest. That’s not abandonment, that’s freedom.

 

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Hearing God In The Quiet

Hearing God In The Quiet

by | Jan 26, 2015 | Thoughts

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I took this picture of my niece mesmerized by the deer in the distance. (Also, she hikes in a bow).

A couple weeks ago I went away for a quiet retreat. The Lord had been nudging me toward a time of solitude, but you know how that goes—things were BUSY. And loud. And moving fast. And you know what? I can get really comfortable with that fast pace because…

busyness covers a bunch of STUFF.

You know what I mean?

When we’re sprinting from thing to thing—running around in a frenzy or intentionally stacking our calendars—the busyness can become an escape. And it’s easy to excuse our disconnect with God by falling back on how much there is to do!, which makes this all so sneaky. I am guilty of this. But I made the time to get away and I’m so thankful I did. Here are a few things I learned from my time of solitude:

  • Silence allows the chatter that’s deep in our souls to surface. I didn’t realize some of the fears and anxieties I was using busyness to shove back down until I unplugged for a time. As the fears percolated the Lord reminded me of the difference between True Safety versus False Security. In Psalm 16:1 David cries out to God for safety because he had made God his refuge (true safety). I began journaling about all the things I sometimes make my refuge: relationships, social media, financial security, personal devices, entertainment, my career (false security)… It took the quiet to reveal my fears and the quiet to reveal the Lord’s remedy for those fears. I’m still working through them, but they’re out in the open before the Lord now, as opposed to being covered up by a packed schedule.
  • The Lord is pleased when we set aside time to seek Him. I’ve been spending time in various parts of the Old Testament recently and am reminded continually that God desires His people to love Him with their heart, soul, strength and mind. For me, stepping away from the normal routine, daily relationships and too many iPhone checks a day was a way of showing God that I love Him. That He is worth my sole attention and affection. Being that I am forever recovering from legalism, it’s important to note that I didn’t get away to earn the Lord’s love—I can fall into that trap too. But this time I was truly expectant to spend time in His Presence, even if I wasn’t sure what to expect. As I took prayer walks, journaled and meditated on Scripture I sensed His pleasure.
  • Solitude is the landscape wherein God shows you what you otherwise wouldn’t know is there. Like sitting silently in the woods waiting for creatures to crawl out of crevices or alight onto branches, so waiting in God’s presence reveals what’s often obscured when we’re in a rush. I had a piece of paper for each family member and friend I was praying for. I felt led to write different prayers for each person, some prayers that felt expected and others the Lord impressed upon my heart that surprised me. Also, the Holy Spirit brought up a conversation He wanted me to have with a loved one about something I would have never seen a need for on my own. When I came home I had that conversation that was both uncomfortable and healing. The Lord knew.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I was only away and fully unplugged for about 28 hours. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I spent a month fasting while hiking the Appalachian Trail in sackcloth. But it was a start for me and I was thinking you might be encouraged to start with some time of solitude yourself, even if it’s for an hour or two this week. Just make a plan and stick to it. Set aside the time to pray, read Scripture, worship and journal what the Holy Spirit reveals to you. Find the quiet. Make the quiet.

Psalm 46:10, Be still and know that I am God.

 

 

 

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What I Love About 1, 2 & 3 John

What I Love About 1, 2 & 3 John

by | Nov 3, 2014 | Bible Study, New Testament

The letters of 1, 2 & 3 John  are—how shall I say this—blunt. Which is one of the reasons I’ve come to love them so much. Sometimes I just need someone to tell me the truth.

Well over a year ago, when considering where to land for this study, I began reading through these short letters. I hit points like what it means to walk in darkness versus light, how it’s incongruent to say you love God but then willingly go do a whole bunch of stuff that doesn’t please Him, how deception creeps in, truth versus heresy, what love really is and means—and I noticed my heart starting to pulse a little faster.

I realized that John’s message, though written 2,000 years ago, couldn’t be more timely.

So I decided to invite some people to my house for a bible study on 12&3 John and try it out. (It appears I’m wearing a name tag.)

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Why John’s letters matter so much today

I had gotten a little lost in the vagueness of current culture. Even Christian culture.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there are a lot of opinions out there. 

While I appreciate concepts like open-mindedness, progressive, forward-thinking, without any structure these ideas cast a hazy milieu over our belief systems. And if our belief systems are unanchored or unwittingly broad, our actions and the way we live become progressively unclear. As a result of that lack of clarity we lose our direction. My course had grown a bit murky. I wonder if you know what I mean?

So 1, 2 & 3 John cuts through this haze with a laser beam, but he doesn’t do it for self-righteousness sake or so we can “get it right” or live up to the rules. He speaks hard-lined truth for the most intimate and hopeful of reasons—so we can have fellowship with God, with His Son and with one another (See 1 John 1:1-5). Community with God and others is at stake. To know and be known. We don’t have to be alone anymore. What better reason for John to have written?

And so I decided to start writing this bible study and here’s what that looked like… (I pride myself on organization.) IMG_3313

What I hope you’ll take away

Carl F. Henry once said, “The early church didn’t say, ‘Look what the world is coming to!’ They said, ‘Look what has come into the world!’”

And from verse one, John reminds us Look Who’s come into this world! He teaches us what it means to abide instead of to strive, manipulate or control. He separates light from dark, truth from lies, and walks us through the foundations of our faith so we can rest our head on firmer ground. He offers us the gift of confidence and knowledge, assuring us that we really can know we know Jesus.

Perhaps more than anything, John shows us what true love is. That it really is more costly and loyal and pursuant than anything we can imagine. And so when talking about love, John always points to Jesus.

This is what happened when Bethany and I came home from an event and saw a box of THESE on my doorstep. We were excited, with our barrettes in our hair and all.

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A Big Thank You

I so appreciate all the support you all have shown me over the years. I love getting to meet you on the road and hearing from you through social media. I have the most gracious audience out there. My prayer is that What Love Is reaches you in the deepest places, renews your faith, strengthens your confidence and helps you know Jesus more. I’m so thankful for you.

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Where Has All The Joy Gone?

Where Has All The Joy Gone?

by | Sep 4, 2014 | Missions, Thoughts

 

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Sunflower Field, Moldova

Sunflower Field, Moldova

These two images represent joy to me. I should first let you know that I am one of those people who has to fight for joy much of the time. Not that serotonin equals joy but I think it helps and I think my levels are low. Nor does a glass half-full mentality equal joy but, again, at least this points us in the right direction. I naturally dwell on what’s not working, could use improvement, the half where the doubts and questions linger. So, generally, I’m fighting for joy; I’m praying for it; I’m seeding and watering it. Which is why I was surprised when I discovered it in the most unlikely places.

See the Discovery boat in the Amazon? See those sunflowers in Moldova? These pictures embody places that have brought me joy, but not simply because of their beauty or majesty. Though a generalization to be sure, the Amazon is where the forgotten live and Moldova is where the orphans live. And nothing has brought me greater joy than meeting these people and experiencing the power and love of the Gospel in the harshness of poverty and hopelessness and abandonment. I’ve also found this same joy here in my own community, too. This next picture represents that community: meals around the table, family suppers, home bible study, afternoon coffees, the place I have to love others.

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My Dining Room Table, Nashville, TN

Serving, reaching out, bringing in the lonely, encouraging the downcast, throwing the birthday party, taking a mission trip, teaching the Scriptures in your home, holding babies in the nursery, praying for the sick, however you’re doing it… this is where the joy is. I watched a fabulous sermon this morning by a friend of mine, Mike Meyers, who is on staff at my father’s church. The title is “Do Something” and if you have 40 minutes of quiet, I would spend it right here.

Mike spoke out of James 1:25, which says, “But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.” 

I’ve read that verse so many times and missed what Mike so brilliantly pointed out: “Knowledge without action robs us of our true joy.” The flip side is this: When we do what we know to do we’re blessed. It suddenly dawned on me why my greatest most sustaining most fulfilling joy has come from being a part of the change Jesus is bringing about in the lives to whom He’s called me. It’s why I’ve found joy in such unlikely places, in parts of the world and in my own neighborhood where it makes no sense to find joy. Because God blesses our obedient doing. And when He blesses, His blessings are full of joy.

As we fly into September, and the Fall promises a new school year, the holidays, a fresh routine, I’m asking myself how my joy is faring. What am I not doing that I know to do? Who needs the warm embrace of Jesus? Where is He asking me to go? What step has His Word told me to take?

Because there is blessing in the doing.

And there is joy in the blessing.

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Cultivate: A Women’s Gathering Around The Word

Cultivate: A Women’s Gathering Around The Word

by | Aug 12, 2014 | Events, Missions, Music

 

Cultivate LogoFor the past few years I’ve dreamt about a women’s event that would reflect my love for the Scriptures, acoustic and thoughtful music, honest fellowship, all threaded by a passion for missions, both local and international. Eight months ago those years of dreaming turned into several months of praying, asking God if this was a gathering He wanted me (and a few special people around me) to put together. Several weeks later we came up with a name: Cultivate. And then a bit more description: A Women’s Gathering Around The Word. A few months after that we invited Michelle Margiotta, former worship leader at Times Square Church in NYC, to join a small trio of musicians to lead in worship. Without giving everything away, I have an invitation for you…

If you live in the Nashville area, or are willing to pile in a car with some friends, would you consider joining us this Friday evening and Saturday morning, August 15-16, for our first ever Cultivate? (Details here). I would love to experience this dream become a reality with you as we are filled with God’s Word, inspired through worship, encouraged in fellowship and absolutely energized by mission. All with the expectation that Jesus will be there waiting for us.

***All proceeds will be benefit the great work of Justice and Mercy International.

Feel free to email or call Bethany Bordeaux at info@kellyminter.com or 615.410.2282 for further information. 

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