7 of 7 Prayers for My Wife's Upcoming Year

Day 7 Gift: Magnesium-alloy yoke with neck cushions

So here's the nerd coming out: magnesium-allow is the strongest, lightest metal we know of to date. It's the kind of stuff Jesus would use to yoke us together for all time, but gift us with an easy burden. He'd even throw in some neck cushions to make sure you're extra comfy cuz that's the kind of guy He is.


Today's Verse: Matthew 11:28-30
Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

Today's Prayer: Thank You for Your guidance and direction. Thank You that you didn't give us Your yoke so that You could just drag us along beside You, or so that we should provide the direction, but that You are training us to follow You. Jesus I have no idea how to find rest on my own so please lead me there. Take me under Your guidance that I might learn to please God.


Today's Worship Song: You Will Never Run, Rend Collective

BONUS PRAYER: God, thank You for my wife. Thank You for this amazing best friend that You've dropped into my lap. Thank You for how You are growing us together in Christ, and thank You for how You are leading her deeper into You each day.

BONUS TRACK: You are the best thing, Ray LaMontagne

Motokar! - Bible Plan Verse #10

Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. (‭Proverbs‬ ‭3‬:‭6‬ NLT)

Read it again.

In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. (‭Proverbs‬ ‭3‬:‭6‬ NASB)

WHAT STICKS OUT?

Seek God and He takes care of the rest

WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE?

>>>OBSESSED CHILD<<<

How do I practically focus on God all the time? What about when I'm at work or school? I can't focus on God then because I have to focus on what I'm doing. The Holy Spirit showed me this idea of a continual focus on God as a comparison to a child with an obsessive interest or hobby. I'm sure you've seen a little girl with princess toys and princess clothes and she only talks about princesses. Or a boy that has pictures of dinosaurs on everything from his shirts to his sheets. My son can't get enough of motokars (that's Runyoro for motor-car). Every day all he wants to do is sit and watch the cars pass by. We see this behavior in the majority of little kids and we normally blow it off as childlike behavior out of touch with reality. It often become tedious for me to sit for long periods of time with my son looking at an empty street just waiting for a regular old car to pass by. But didn't Jesus tell us that we need to become like little children to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. We often associate this verse to a childlike faith in God, but the Bible never actually says "childlike faith". Jesus said we need to have childlike humility (‭Matthew‬ ‭18‬:‭1-4). Stop trying to look like you have it all together and accept that without God we have nothing. Every creation on this earth is a reflection of its creator. Acknowledging that is like having that childlike obsession to see God in everything. From this perspective, forgetting or ignoring God in everything you do is childlike and obsessing over God in everything is an acknowledgement of reality.

>>>PATH PULLED STRAIGHT<<<

We often miss the poetic complexity of the Bible in its native language. In Hebrew, the word we translate to 'path' is

אֹרַח

Transliteration: 'orach

In the Bible this word is most often translated as a road or direction, but it is also is used figuratively as a passing of life or way of living.

Also the word translated to 'straight' is יָשַׁר

Transliteration: yashar

This word means to be right, be straight, be level, be upright, be just, be lawful, be smooth
So this verse literally says that God will make a correct path ahead of you. In our selfish ways we want this verse to read like this: Follow God and He will point you in an obvious, easy to follow direction. A clear cut path in life sounds like exactly what we want, but we know that rarely happens. When you read into the figurative definitions of this verse, our straight path is more accurately that God will lead us in an proper way to live. It's not so much a physical direction as it is a spiritual, emotional, and mental growth. We want a change of scenery but God promises a change of heart.

Time Loop! - Bible Plan Verse #9

“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today. (‭Matthew‬ ‭6‬:‭34‬ NLT)

Read it again.

So don’t worry about tomorrow. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Tomorrow will have its own worries. (‭Matthew‬ ‭6‬:‭34‬ ERV)

WHAT STICKS OUT?

Tomorrow versus today

WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE?

I enjoy the science fiction stories that break the boundaries of reality for the purpose of exposing a truth that otherwise we wouldn't see. That was the type of picture the Holy Spirit showed me for this verse.

>>>MAN TODAY<<<

"Hey! I built this time portal so I could see what happens tomorrow and plan for it."

Doesn't that sound great? You could catch any problem before it happens and be ready for it! You'd know to take your car to the shop before it even breaks down. You'd be able to study for that pop quiz. You'd never plan a picnic on a rainy day. But what is the cost?

>>>MAN TOMORROW<<<

"Hold on...This guy over here won't talk to me because he's looking into a time portal."

Wait? Is the man from tomorrow talking about himself? He's the one looking into a time portal and won't talk to the man from today. Actually the man from tomorrow is trying to talk to the man from the day after tomorrow, but that man is too busy looking into a time portal too. You can guess that this deadlock is happening every day in the future as well. Here's where we can clearly see a truth through science fiction that we struggle with in the real world. If you could see into the future just one day, would that satisfy your need to keep bad things from happen? No! Then you'd need to see a week into the future. Then you'd need to see a year into the future and so on indefinitely. So when you'd look into the future at yourself, all your future self would be doing is looking into the future too. More and more of your time would be spent trying to see into the future. Less and less time would actually be spent in the time God has given you right now. This is a self-destructive plan because it destroys its original purpose. The reason you want to know what will happen tomorrow is to improve your life today, but you're actually spending all your time looking at tomorrow and none of your time is spent actually doing what matters right now.

Can you see how this science fiction metaphor reveals the same truth about worry? Worrying about the future is like trying to look into a time portal. It may seem like focusing on tomorrow's problems is helping you plan for the long run, but most of the time you're actually distracting yourself from doing what you're supposed to do right now. Don't let regrets from the past or fears of the future stop you from living in this moment. God has forgiven your past, and God is in control of the future. You are only in control of what you do in this fraction of a second. Make it count by focusing on your time right now!

Author's Note: The Holy Spirit gave me the idea for this drawing while I was at work. I didn't have any supplies so I had to draw it on a Post-It note. Here's what it looked like.

Gold Digger - Bible Plan Verse #5

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. (‭Matthew‬ ‭6‬:‭33‬ NLT)

Read it again.

What you should want most is God’s kingdom and doing what he wants you to do. Then he will give you all these other things you need. (‭Matthew‬ ‭6‬:‭33‬ ERV)

WHAT STICKS OUT?

Action word:Seek

Return on investment:everything you need

WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE?

>>> MINER <<<

The verb "seek" is a action of moving forward as opposed to just wanting for God. The first thought I had was of a boy digging through a toy box to find his favorite toy, but I didn't want this message to seem childish. So I aged the concept to a man digging for treasure like the parable in Matthew 13:44.

>>> LAYERS OF EARTH <<<

Putting God first is a process similar to digging through the layers of the earth to get to the ultimate treasure. The goal is to dig out or move past the things that are taking your focus away from God. You start at the outermost layer and gradually work your way down.

The top layer is usually littered with things that are clearly identified in the bible as bad, such as addictions to drugs and alcohol or sexual immorality or violence or negative attitudes. But just because this layer may contain some obvious obstacles, it doesn't make it easy to get rid of them. God must help the process. 

The second layer contains things you want that are taking your attention from God. They aren't bad, but they aren't best. These obstacles normally fill up your free time and weekends. You can identify these things by a question like, "where am I finding purpose or joy or rest apart from God?"

Most people think this verse is talking about the distractions at this second layer, but it goes much deeper. Right before this verse (Matthew 6:19-34), Jesus specifically tells us not to concern ourselves with basic needs such as food or water or clothes. This bottom layer contains things you need to survive. Here you learn that life itself is less important than God's work and you release your control on life to God.

Which layer are you digging through now?

>>> GOLD <<<

Now here's the twist of this verse. You just gave up everything for God, but somehow He promises to give it back. How does that work? I prayed for the Holy Spirit to explain it to me. We spent some time working it out together and here is what He said: Anything you want in this life is actually a gift from God (James 1:17) designed to point you back to our Creator. At the core of each gift there is a reflection of our Father (like love or joy or peace) to teach us about Him and how to have a relationship with Him. The problem is that we begin to worship and rely on the gifts instead of the Giver. The gifts of this world are like finding gold. You can be satisfied by the chunk of gold that you found, but if you look closer, you'll see a vein of gold leading to the source. Don't settle for one piece when there is so much more. Don't settle for a reflection of our Creator when you can meet Him face to face through Jesus Christ.

Full speed ahead!

So like I told you last post, I'm pursuing an impossible dream. I'm going to submit a Bible plan to YouVersion (a.k.a. the Bible App) even though they aren't taking submissions. I'm not sure how that's going to work, but why should that stop me? I spent some time praying about what kind of Bible plan I would submit. I have a bunch of cool ideas squirreled away, but after praying it over, the obvious choice is to just do what I do here on the blog. I'm going to draw the most popular verses and write about what God reveals in them. So where am I going to find some statistics on the most popular verses? Isn't it obvious?

Well, YouVersion, perhaps you aren't going to let me submit a Bible plan just yet, but that isn't going to stop me from forcing you to help me anyway! Mwahahahaaaaaaaa!

The neat thing is that I've already drawn two of these top ten verses:

#1 Romans 12:2

#4 Jeremiah 29:11

I was close to drawing #5 and #9 Matthew 6:33-34, but instead drew Matthew 6:26-29. I mention that here primarily because it's one of my favorite pictures ever!

So that leaves 8 verses to go!

Looking back on my previous posts, I've realized how much God has grown in me so I'm taking a new approach. When I spend time reading a verse, now the drawing is secondary. The primary focus is the truth in those words that the Holy Spirit is revealing. Because of the way God has designed my brain, the drawing works itself out just from focusing on God's truth and figuring out how to apply it practically. So for now the text of the posts will be spending more time explaining why I drew what I drew and the truth God revealed in it.

Let's do it!

Day 310

[Text from image: Go tell everyone the Good News about me. Teach them to follow my commands.]

Day 309

[Text from image: Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive?]

Day 308

[Text from image: SINS of ALL the EARTH]

Day 307

[Text from image: DO WHAT IS RIGHT - "This man is innocent" - DO WHAT IS EASY - "I was my hands of this. Do whatever you want."]

Day 306

[Text from image: A CURSE on me if I am lying. I DON'T KNOW this man you're talking about!]

Day 305

[Text from image: "Am I some dangerous revolutionary, that you came with swords and clubs to arrest me?"]

Day 303

Day 302

Day 301

Day 300

[Text from image: In the future don't let anyone mislead you, for many will come in my name. "I'm the Messiah!" - "Look at all the miracles I can do!" - "I heard that the Messiah is over there." - For as the lightning flashes in the east and shines in the west so it will be when I return.]

Day 299

[Text from image: Come to me. - DON'T GO THIS WAY! Over there is the real way full of rules and obstacles.]

Day 298

[Text from image:  The cornerstone is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation, important since all other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure. <Definition take from Wikipedia entry on cornerstone>]

People give Jesus a label, but the proof of His identity is not given to Him by others but shown through what He does. A builder can spray paint the word rejected on a cornerstone, but that label does not affect the quality of the block. In the same way people can give you labels, or you may even give them to yourself, but you are not defined by what people call you. Your true nature is revealed in your actions.

Day 297

[Text from image: God - Authority (via true relationship) - Jesus / Power. The leading priests could not question Jesus' power. They could only try to challenge His authority.]

Day 296

[Text from image: "Save us now!"]

Day 295

[Text from image: "Here's God's plan." - "But it's all backwards?" - "Actually, the world's plan is backwards. God created it to be this way."]