Tag: Stress

Scripture Medicine for 2023: Do Not Fray

On By happyreignIn Heather, Reflections & MusingsLeave a comment

“All who love me will do what I say.
Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me.
I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. (John 14:23, 24, 27 NLT partial)
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” -Jesus (John 14:27 KJV partial)

Let – allow, permit, give admission, authorize, sanction, grant, empower, enable, agree, permit to pass, rent out, let
Not – the negation of, the opposite of a verb
Your – belonging to, possessive, ownership
Heart – the central innermost part of something, the vital essence, the thoughts, the feelings, the mind, center of physical & spiritual wellbeing, seat of understanding, character, the soul, innermost part
Troubled – disturb, worry, anxious, agitate, distress, torment, plague, nag, irritate, gnaw at, prey on someone’s mind, lie heavy on the mind, oppress, weigh down, afflict, burden, bug, bother, fret, agonize, upset oneself, be concerned, hassle, be afflicted with, bedeviled, beset, incapacitated, suffer from, ail, be a martyr to, experiencing distress, anxiety, beset by problems or conflict, a difficult situation or time, a cause of worry, an aspect of something regarded as unsatisfactory or difficulty, cause distress or anxiety to or about
Troubled. Greek 5015. tarassō
1. to agitate, trouble, cause inward commotion, take away calmness of mind, disturb equanimity
2. to disquiet, make restless
3. to strike one’s spirit with fear and dread
4. to render anxious; distressed
5. to perplex the mind by suggesting doubts and scruples

Neither – additional negative statement
Afraid – frightened, scared, fearful, nervous, apprehensive, intimidated, uneasy, alarmed, tense, worried, panicky, frightened, beside oneself, frantic, shaking, cowering, cowardly, funk, nervy, fluster, jumpy, jittery, reluctant, unwilling, hesitant, slow, shy, averse, sorry, sad, distressed, regretful, apologetic, unhappy, remorseful afraid of someone or something, worrying that something undesirable will occur or be done, unwilling or reluctant to do something for fear of outcome, anxious about well-bring or safety of, express polite or formal apology or regret
Afraid. Greek 1168. deliliaō
1. to be timid
2. to be of fear
3. to be fearful
From Greek 1167. deilia
a. timidity, fear, cowardice, fearfulness
From Greek 1169. deilos
a. Dread; that is by implication faithless
Afraid derives from the latin word, Affray – Afrayer, disturbing peace.
Afrayer derives from latin word Fray – Disturbance, startle; the unraveling of peace or safety

Jesus’ commandment to his followers restated in different ways:
Do not permit your heart to be faithless.
Do not allow the peace in your heart that I have given you begin to fray by any mental or emotional agitation or threat.
Do not give room to any thoughts that intimidate the safety I have bought for you with my blood.
Under no circumstance allow your spirit to shaken about anything, ever.
Keep the cords of your peace soundly and stoutly entact. Do not tolerate imaginations that fray your stillness and restfulness.
Be still. Give no permission to agitation within yourself.
Make no allowance or space inside of yourself for any expectation of negative outcomes.
Your faith and focus on myself is what pushes out or eliminates room for cowardess, timidity, or hesitation.
The world does not have the ability to restore or keep your peace. You will not be able to look to a change in your circumstance for stillness and soundness in your spirit in mind. What you need for that I have given you freely but it is up to you to defend, maintain, and enforce the entactness of this gift. Thoughts and feelings that result i this gift beginning to fray are lies that do not originate from the Father that need to be refused and refuted.
You have authority over your own heart to refuse participation and agreement with fear.
Unwavering fixation on Christ in our heart and mind enable the broadband defense, restoration, and maintenance of this kingdom of peace in our inmost being. It cannot be shaken. We are either standing on thoughts of sand or the rock of himself.
It is obedience (worship, expressed love unto Jesus) to no longer tolerate, permit fear to have governance in the core of your being.

This general directive is stated 365 times in the bible.
God is trying to tell us humans something from his perspective as we walk through our lives here on earth.
This year is not an exception. Every generation has needed to hear and heed these words.

May this reflection afford you clarity. Blessing and Happy New Year

Dusting off the Stories of what God has Done

On By happyreignIn Heather1 Comment

God is always the same and what he did once he would do again.  God is not a respecter of persons and what he would do for one he would do for any.  These two statement encourage the hope and possibility of what God did once for someone else, he would do for me.  In saying that, something he did twenty years ago for me, he can do for you now.  So I’m walking down the memory lane of life as it is always the front page of who God still is today.  Take anything as hope of what can do for you.

  1.  I trusted God with my love life and he brought me the most amazing husband any woman could ever dream of.  As I’m writing this he is charging my cell phone for me and asking if I have water because he was going to refill it for me as I’m sitting in bed on a Saturday typing this about him.
  2.  I’ve never made over $10,000 a year in my entire adult life yet God has financed sending me to 23 different countries over the course of my life. For whatever reason, the way my heart is wired is that I feel most romanced by God when he sends me to travel somewhere. I know I couldn’t, and wouldn’t want to do anything without him sending me.
  3.   I’ve screwed up, meaning I’ve failed at something he’s asked me to do, and yet he’s never fired me, punished me, abandoned me or quit being kind to me.  Because of this I really realized the grace of God is truly a gift.  It is not earned.
  4.   God redeemed the ending of my family when we were younger.  My parents separated and both happily remarried.  My siblings are all risking love in some measure in their life.  This sometimes requires the greatest courage.  I am proud for the measure they continue to risk being known and loved despite how we’ve seen it can possibly end up.
  5.   God has given me peace.  In different seasons of life due to different things I have different measures of peace but in all of life I have a strong underlying trust in God that always imparts to me a steadfastness that I feel all the time.  Like I’m being held, or embraced, or hugged and I feel safe and sturdy.  I love God for imparting this feeling to me on an ongoing basis.
  6.   I realized through frequency to get over myself, my understanding, my ways, control, anything I would hold on to for fear or security.  From plans to stuff, he really does take care of everything and often, when I let him, way better than I could ever put things together.  Like I really am blind and dumb compared to all he sees and knows.  It is wisdom to trust him, let him lead, and put everything in his hands.
  7.   Unity, relationships, connection, obedience, service, humility, love, faith, truth, these things really are the majors in life and everything else is truly unimportant and meaningless in comparison.
  8.   I really feel like my death is in God’s hands as much as my birth was. I didn’t control my birth, God did.  In the same way, I don’t think anything is random and he knows all of the days of my life and will work out the plans and dreams he has for sending me here in the first place.
  9.   I don’t fear death in any way.  Almost daily I feel the fragility of this realm of life and time.  It is such a thin veil and my true self is timeless and in an always state.  I do not want to miss what he wants to show me and teach me and also truly enjoy the day with him as this is me loving to be alive with him.  This is living.
  10.   I feel humbled by God’s goodness and love.  I definitely don’t deserve any of it, but he shows me that I’m worthy because he says I am.  Who am I to disagree?!   😉
  11.   I thought I was going to go into tangible stories about specifics God had done for me–
  12.   Oh-my father’s transplant was an answer to prayer-he met my husband and is still alive!
  13.   And also my grandfather’s life was spared in a time where he was being killed by being given the wrong medication in the hospital but the error was found out and he became himself again to pass in peace at a later time.
  14.   Also I was filled with the holy spirit, a tangible experience in my body that overcame me that I still feel today and a way I interact with God directly spirit to spirit rather than just mind to mind, early morning alone in a gymnasium in a Lutheran church!
  15.   I received God’s forgiveness and being made right with God through what Jesus Christ suffered on my behalf on the cross, making a way for me to stand blameless and confident before God because he has made me his family and his friend.
  16.   I thought I was going to write more specific stories like the ones above, but it appears God is an active living miracle in my life.  I am so grateful to have the ability to see and breathe and feel and taste and express myself and sit in peace and have freedom.  I am so thankful to share life with my husband and spend the passing of time in his company.

These are a few thoughts that come to mind when thinking about what God has done for me in my life.  May it be an encouragement and blessing to you.  Oh yeah – don’t waste your time overly concerning yourself with what other people think of you.  It is not your responsibility nor does it matter beyond your upright heart before the father.  Acceptance or praise of man is not the bread that that gives life but rather the word of God.  Blessings!

A New Beginning

On By happyreignIn Heather, Reflections & Musings2 Comments

I usually come here with a message I want to share but today I just really wanted to come here and write without knowing what!  There is an exhilaration in living life in the unknown and so a part of adding joy to my day is doing this!

I just want to write that the purpose of life is so much more than what we produce!  Did you know you can have a perfectly wonderful day apart from being productive??  That the moment we leave this earth, all of our to do lists cease and everything we were intending to do never gets done and the earth still spins without us??  There are thousands of people around the world with no job or no career that wake up and exist, some with joy even, and are their lives not still full of value?!?

I would speculate that the purpose of our lives is to experience the exchange of love, either between us and people, or us and God, and hopefully both.  And money, whether it is elusive or we have plenty, only fits into this equation of purpose when used as a tool to experience this LOVE?

We are even good at turning ministry into a work and can lose joy trying to make as many people possible experience this exchange of love!  God’s calling never asked you to set aside your piece of experiencing heaven on earth for the sake of others; we share what we walk in, whether a worker mentality or a son or daughter of God mentality.

Did you know the fastest way to your eternal productivity is to rest in God’s orchestration and providence in your life and be faithful to the people he’s already placed around you in life?!?  Did you know we are not supposed to pour out our soul for the sake of trying to make something happen that God can do so easily on his own and in his own timing?!?

There is grace and joy when heaven is behind the work of your hands, even when enduring hard or difficult obstacles, where there is nothing else you would rather be doing with your time and energy.  Did you know that rest IS powerful?  Did you know that trust IS productive?

No matter how hard Moses tried in the natural he could have NEVER liberated hundreds of thousands of his people from the Egyptian empire, but when God wanted it to happen, Moses participated but God did all the work?  When we trust God for him to accomplish his ideas through us, it always is supernatural beyond our own abilities?  Deliverance wasn’t even in Moses’ mind!

God’s ideas are the best for us to partner with and sometimes it requires a lack of our own understanding of the how or the why or the timing.  This is great!  You are not doing anything wrong, you are trusting for something bigger than your ability to orchestrate the outcome.

Trust and rest in God’s impossible!  May you truly experience the awe of his manifest glory and presence and orchestration in your life.  Peace and blessings!

Here and Now

On By happyreignIn Heather, Reflections & MusingsLeave a comment

Here’s the other little tidbit of thought redirection that has been taking place internally of late.  Of course we observe that so much regret involves the past and so much worry involves the future.  Neither of which we are really invited to control much.  Jesus says don’t worry about tomorrow and Paul says put yesterday behind you and look forward.  Another spectrum for me that my thoughts wander to other than time is location.  I’m thinking about what’s happening here or there, or with this person, or with that person and this can all be well and dandy but it can also be nothing to do with Life in my heart.

time-does-not-exist

So the phrase that I’ve been prompted to through song and just grace is “Here and Now.”  Are your thoughts engaged with here, meaning his presence with me and the people around me and the opportunities around me HERE??  And are my thoughts engaged with NOW, such as not things that already happened or things that could happen in the future that I don’t need to worry about, but are my thoughts on today NOW??

If my thoughts aren’t in one of those two place either here or now, they better be accompanied by feelings of excitement and joy otherwise my mind doesn’t have any business bringing my heart there again.

power-of-his-presence

Jesus and his presence and his goodness are with me HERE and with me NOW and will be with me wherever and whenever I get to those future times and places, even if they involve hard conversations dealing with things that have happened in the past.  He has my heart and those moments in his hands and is leading and living with me in kindness, strength and joy.  He really does want to experience the life and joy within the moments surrounding me and I accept his invitation to let go of control or fear or regret in exchange for trust and thanksgiving setting me up to engage with him HERE and NOW.