Stay in Jerusalem?! Run for the hills, or stay and watch Him work?

One Sunday several months back, about halfway through the sermon the pastor read Acts 1:4. At this point, I am sorry to say, I had mentally derailed. Don't get me wrong, our pastor is very engaging....sorry, Jason it's not you, it's me! (Actually, I highly encourage you to check out our online sermon log www.thecoastlinechurch.com. The Spirit is moving on the Space Coast, my friends!)

Anyhow, I'm ashamed to say I'm not really quite sure why he read that verse, but as I stared at it on the big screen I had one of those moments when something just jumped out at me.

This verse comes from the days after Jesus had risen from the dead but before He ascended to heaven. It says, "While being together and eating with them, He commanded them not to leave

Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Of which,” He said, “you have heard Me speak."

Stop and read that again. What?! Stay in Jerusalem? Do you have any idea what Jerusalem was like for the disciples at that time? These men, big, strong, blue-collar guys, were hiding in fear for their lives. Just a few days before they thought they had lost everything when the One for Whom they had laid everything down was crucified on a cross for all to see. Their faith was shaken to the core. Then, three days later when Christ rose from the grave, as He had already told them He would, their faith was restored, but their lives were in more danger than ever. They were being hunted by all of the officials and all of the guards. The most feared officers in the known world wanted their heads. People were threatened by Christ...just as they are today. When His body was gone the officials were willing to go to any extremes necessary to prove that the disciples were behind the disappearance. As the disciples were most likely making plans to "get out of Dodge," Christ said, "Stay in Jerusalem. Stay in the midst of your trouble. Stay in the middle of the hardest time of your life. Stay though fear so grips you that death would be a welcome escape. Stay in Jerusalem," He said, "and wait for what God has promised, which you have already heard from me."

 Wow! What a powerful message for our lives. We've all had those times where maybe it would be easier to just run away. We're scared or frightened. We just want to get out of the situation. We frantically look around, searching for a way of escape, but listen. Is Christ whispering to your heart, "Stay and wait to see what God has promised. The promises that you have read in my Word. The promises I already told you about. Stay and wait and see."?

This reminds me of another of my very favorite passages found in Exodus 14:13-14, "Moses told the people, Fear not; stand still (firm, confident, undismayed) and see the salvation of the Lord which He will work for you today. For the Egyptians you have seen today you shall never see again. The Lord

will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace and remain at rest." (STOP.....Write this one down, and commit it to memory. Trust me! You'll find many applicable times to use it.)

There are times when common sense tells you God has provided a way out of your tough situation, and you need to take it. But there are other times when God wants to show you just how awesome He is, and He says, "Stand still and watch. I will fight for you!"

Only personal, devoted, regular, quiet time with the Lord will answer the question for you of which type of situation yours is. But rest assured, God will do what He has promised. The things you have already heard from His Word!

My friends, there is so much purpose in pain. Some times we must be still in the midst of it to see how great our God is and how His ways are so much greater than our own. See more Purpose in Pain posts HERE.

No More Perfect Marriages...But There is a Perfect God!

Being willing to fight for your marriage and work on the tough stuff takes courage. In the third chapter of their book, No More Perfect Marriages, Mark and Jill Savage give us eight "God tools" to use for working on our marriages, and for battling what they have coined "the perfection infection." (I'd list them all out, but you really should get the book and discover them for yourself! :) )  The first tool they mention is courage. I love this quote, "Courage is not the absence of fear; it is determining something is more important than the fear. Your marriage is more important than your fear of conflict, your fear of taking off your mask, your fear of intimacy, your fear of disagreement, or your fear of honest conversation." (Check out this video Tim and I did discussing how we found the courage to work through some pretty tough times in our first few years of marriage.)

One of the things I love most about the Savages is that they have no illusions. They are not looking through their rose colored glasses or out of their "perfect Christian home" bubble. They come from a perspective that few have ever reached. To serve in ministry, to deal with infidelity, to walk, or perhaps I should say crawl through the process of restoration and then to dare to speak about it is rare and oh, so powerful. It was from the depths of the dark times that Jill says, "I learned it's easy to love someone who is loving you. It's a completely different ballgame to love someone who is not loving you back." What a true picture of God's redeeming love for us, His church, His children!

How many times have we confessed our love for Him, vowed to deny all else, and then in a moment of weakness given our hearts to another? And yet, through it all He doesn't give up on us. He pursues us all over again. Cleans us off. Takes us back, and restores us to full fellowship. Thank you, Jesus!

I love this quote from the forward of their book done by Dr. Gary Chapman (of The 5 Love Languages), "The reality is, there are no perfect husbands and no perfect wives, so why would we expect to have a perfect marriage?" Amen!

When it comes down to it, I have learned over the past nearly 12 years of marriage that there are many times you have to choose love whether you feel it or not. Don't get me wrong, I am crazy in love with my man, and I love him so much more now than the day we married. But there is such a different aspect of love that comes from dealing with tough stuff, walking through ups and downs, and coming face-to-face with your own "humanness." For your marriage to thrive it must be based on more than mere loving feelings. It must be grounded in the true essence of what love really is. Love is so much more than a feeling. It is a choice. It is choosing to look beyond yourself, beyond your spouse, and adopt an eternal perspective that says, "God first!" When talking about the God tool of wisdom the Savages say, "No matter what your spouse does, you have to be motivated by doing the right things for God. Not for a specific result, but simply because God asks you to do things His way. The beautiful thing about this is that you will gain wisdom. You will be changed. And if one person changes in a marriage, the marriage changes!"

Much like the process of sanctification that follows salvation (that process after having accepted Christ of continually being made more and more of who God would have you be), your marriage is not complete the moment you say, "I do." Marriage is a lifetime of growing, learning and becoming more and more of the spouse the Lord would have you be. Mark and Jill say, "We naturally pull apart unless we work to stay together." This makes me think of driving a car. If you let go of the wheel you will naturally run off the road. You must pay attention! But the beauty of it is if you are already in the ditch, it's going to take some muscle and maybe a good tune-up, but you can get that thing out of the ditch, back onto the road, and start again.


Perhaps Mark and Jill summed it up best with this line in the final paragraph of the book, "There are no perfect marriages, but there is a God who wants to "perfect" us through this thing called marriage."

If you'd like a chance to win a FREE copy of the book No More Perfect Marriages please comment below with your email address or private message me on my Facebook page to be entered in the July 1st drawing!

See all posts from my Book Review of No More Perfect Marriages...

Helpmate or Boss Lady - Which role am I playing in my marriage?

I love my husband. I respect his authority, and I admire his wisdom....but I don't always let him use those gifts which he so adequately possesses. I mean he has some great ideas...mine just seem better. He does a lot of great things. He just doesn't always do them the "right" way. I'm just trying to help! I mean, I know he means well, but....well, didn't God give me to him to be his helper? If you think about it, I'm just trying to do my job, fulfill my calling, serve the Lord with gladness...do I have any sisters out there?

All joking aside, I am not deaf to the fact that this is not exactly the best way to honor my husband. In chapter 7 of No More Perfect Marriages , pointedly titled, “The Dishes Go in the Dishwasher Only One Way,”Jill makes this statement, "When winning is more important than listening, or when a spouse feels their way is the right way and their spouse’s way is the wrong way, it is crushing to their

partner who doesn't feel heard or valued." Jill, you're killing me!!!! The truth really does hurt. My friends, coming face to face with these hard, ugly truths about ourselves is part of that dying to self thing we hear so much about.

‭Proverbs‬ ‭21:23‬ ‭ says, “Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble.” Might we say the woman who does this could keep her marriage out of trouble...or at least spare it quite a bit of drama? Selah....

So here I am cruising along, happily enjoying my journey through this great book when I come to this, “Acceptance seems pretty easy when we're dating. After marriage, acceptance gets harder because we bump into those differences more often! Acceptance is the action of fully receiving someone for who they completely are without trying to change, alter, or CORRECT them.” (Emphasis added because that’s the way it looked to me when I came across these words!) Oh man, did they have to throw that last one in? I can scoot past the first two. All well-meaning, God-seeking, Christ-sharing wives know to warn any of our unmarried or newly married friends that you should never enter marriage with the intent to change your spouse (even in the area of toilet paper roll refill…(click HERE if you missed that confession.), but to say that to accept our spouse means not correcting them, oh me! If there's a thorn in the side of our marriage this it is!! If Tim says it's 89 degrees, I have to make sure he knows it's actually 91. If he says we live 15 minutes from the mall, I have to jump in and say it actually takes 12. Hey, at least I know I have a problem!

On page 141 Jill says, “I've decided it's more important to do what's right than it is to be right.” To which my flesh screams, “But, Jill what if I am right???!!!!” Then I see the first part...do right, and the Holy Spirit reminds me of 1 Corinthians 13 where it say love does not seek its own. So I find myself backed into a corner...it's fight or flight time, and then I am gently reminded that in God's way of doing things there is another option...I can die to self, give up my need to be right, and in doing so truly begin to experience God's best for my marriage. Which, let's face it, will far surpass any illusion I may have of creating the perfect marriage.


“ Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” Romans 15:7


Why is acceptance so hard for me? I actually think it's pretty clear, though I don't want to admit it. It's pure and simple pride...ugly, nasty, frustrating pride. What does it say to my husband when I am constantly correcting or questioning him? What does it say when I am constantly struggling with the way he may do things, or for instance, the way he drives. What does it say to the one I have committed to love more than anyone else on this earth if I am constantly unsatisfied with him? If I am supposed to be the closest human expression he has in this world of God's love for him then how on earth is he feeling that love and acceptance if I am constantly judging, correcting and questioning? Ouch! This hurts! But let us not forget, often it is only by being broken down that He can truly build us up into all He has called us to be!


I encourage you to get your own copy of No More Perfect Marriages.

If you'd like a chance to win a FREE copy of the book No More Perfect Marriages please comment below with your email address or private message me on my Facebook page to be entered in the July 1st drawing!

See all posts from my Book Review of No More Perfect Marriages...