[FONT=Comic Sans MS]Have you ever noticed the tension we live in? We don’t want to sin—we sin. We want to do right—we fail. How many of you have ever said, “I will never do that again! I will never sin in that way again?” and then we sin in the same exact way within 24 hours? We pray for a miracle, it doesn’t happen. We pray for a miracle, it happens.

I know many people who have had physical healings; we’re talking, brain tumors disappearing, legs growing, etc. Total supernatural, inexplainable miracles. I've also known some who have prayed and prayed to be healed of cancer, only to go on and die of cancer, or someone who prays to be healed of some kind of physical ailment, only to have to live with said ailment.

So, why does God sometimes heal and sometimes not? Why do we want to do good, but fail? What is up with this tension we live in?

Physical healings are not about us; they never have been. It’s not, “If I believe hard enough,” or “If I don’t doubt,” or “If I just have enough faith,” or “If I just name it and claim it!” That’s totally putting the healing—the miracle—on ourselves, like we have something to do with it. We don’t.

This is about God and his kingdom. His kingdom crashing into our lives, our world, and him having his way. When Jesus was here, he proclaimed, “God’s kingdom is at hand!” and it was. Jesus cast out demons and he healed hundreds of people—even raised some from the dead. That is God’s kingdom crashing into our world and him having his way. We see bits and pieces of God’s kingdom every time Jesus performed a miracle, a healing. But at the same time, God’s kingdom isn’t completely here 100% all the time today. That will happen when Jesus returns. So we have this tension, which I call “the-already-and-the-not-yet.” God’s kingdom already here, but not yet 100% of the time.

Picture a picket fence. Sometimes you try to stick your hand through to the other side, and you can, because there’s space, there’s air; other times, at a different part of the fence, you try to stick your hand through, and you cannot. You’ve hit fence. That’s how it is with God’s kingdom. Sometime it comes crashing through and his will is accomplished on earth just like it is in heaven. Other times, we pray and pray, but the miracle doesn’t take place. God’s kingdom doesn’t break through.

And the thing is, God’s the one who gets to decide. Our job is to worship him [I]no matter what he decides[/I]. He's God and we're not.

Here are some examples of living in this tension of the-already-and-the-not-yet in the life of Paul. It's not in regards to a physical healing, but you can still feel the tension of what I'm talking about. It's the same exact tension we live in today.

[U]1st Corinthians 6:8-10:[/U]
[I]We are honest, but they call us impostors. We are well known, but we are treated as unknown. We live close to death, but here we are, still alive. We have been beaten within an inch of our lives. Our hearts ache, but we always have joy. We are poor, but we give spiritual riches to others. We own nothing, and yet we have everything.[/I]

[U]Romans 7:18-21:[/U]
[I]I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can't make myself do right. I want to, but I can't. When I want to do good, I don't. And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. But if I am doing what I don't want to do, I am not really the one doing it; the sin within me is doing it. It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.[/I]

See what I mean? It's normal to have struggles, we’re broken; we need Jesus. If we weren't broken, we certainly wouldn't need him. And we should always always always ask for his kingdom to come, for his will to be done right here on earth just like it is in heaven. He’s the only way we can make it in this crazy mixed-up world.

Sorry my posts get so long. Sometimes I get to typing, and I can't stop. :chatterbox:Thanks for dropping by, have a lovely day!
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Anne

Each one of us individually has our own kingdom(s) or queendom(s).

So, what is that?

A kingdom is where the King gets to have his way, 100% of the time; it’s where the King gets to rule and reign.

So what about the kingdom of God?

Jesus never stopped talking about the kingdom of God. It was his absolute passion. It is the central theme of his ministry. Because it was Jesus’s passion, and we want to follow in Jesus’s footsteps, it should be our passion, too. It should not be trivialized.

The signs of the kingdom of God:
• People who reflect God’s nature
• Worship
• Extravagant love
• Giving/serving the poor
• Forgiveness/restoration
• Grace/mercy

The kingdom of God is the dynamic rule and reign of God; it is God’s intentions, his authority, and his ruling power.

The kingdom of God/heaven is not a territory or a place—it’s not stationary—it is always moving and growing.

[B] The kingdom of God appears every time we submit our lives to Gods will.[/B]

When Jesus showed us how to pray, [I]Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven[/I] is a part of that prayer. When I pray for somebody, I like to pray that over them. For instance, when I pray for someone who is hurting—emotionally or physically—I say, “Father let your kingdom come to ______ [insert name] right now, let your will be done right here in their life, just like it is in heaven.” And if they’re suffering, what is heaven like? There’s no suffering, there’s no pain. And if there's no pain and suffering in heaven, and we're asking God to bring his kingdom to this person, to their physical body, to their mind, to their heart—right to where they need it, we're asking for God to heal them. We're asking for God’s kingdom to come crashing into their life! For the supernatural to come breaking into the natural. It’s something we should always ask for - for his kingdom to come to our lives!

A few months ago, a particular family member made some horrible and untrue accusations against my husband and I. It was a very hard time, because this family member is a follower of Jesus, and so we were super surprised by this. My natural instinct when this happened was to want to lay into her about how wrong she was and what a blabbermouth she is and that all she does is gossip and I just wanted to verbally throw up all over her. None of this would have been good; in fact, I would have been sinning against my father in heaven if I would’ve reacted this way in anger and bitterness. Instead I ran to Jesus, and I asked him to satisfy the need that I had in my heart for justification. When I went to him and prayed to him and just got in his presence, I heard his voice, and he said, “I know that what she’s saying is not true. I know the truth. Isn’t that enough? You just love her and forgive her and let me take care of it. All that matters is that I love you and that I know the truth.”

God’s spirit totally calmed me down, he put supernatural forgiveness in my heart toward this family member, and I was able to talk to her in a gentle way. I told her that her accusation was not true, but I did it in a gentle way, and not out of anger. I told her I’d be praying for her and for us and that peace would be restored.

I'm certainly not perfect, and I have failed many many times, but I know the Lord loved that that particular situation was handled that way, instead of me verbally throwing up all over her and making things much much worse (because it would have made things much worse). That was God's will, that was his kingdom coming to my life at that moment and the outcome was changed. God's will was done instead of my will. [I]Whenever we submit to God being King in our life, and whenever we let God have his rule and reign, God’s kingdom has appeared, right here on earth![/I]

I think that because of the familiarity of The Father’s Prayer, the words, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done…” have become trivialized. Let’s untrivialize them and pray in earnest for God’s kingdom to come (in every situation!). Let's pray for his will to be done right here on earth, just like it is in heaven!

[SIZE=1]Why does God supernaturally heal some people some of the time, but not everybody all of the time? I’ll do my best to touch on that next time...[/SIZE]

Anne

My daughters and I are reading the book "Prince Caspian," by C.S. Lewis. It's book #2 in the Narnia series. The movie comes out in theaters May 16th. I cannot wait. These books are terrific for kids and/or adults! If you've not read them yet, I give 'em a thumbs up.

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Speaking of daughters. My oldest daughter made me laugh in a frustrated and yet humorous sort of way the other day. Let me see if I can explain it and still have it come across in the (infuriating and funny) way it did to me.

My oldest daughter is 13. I've always been told, "Just watch out! Just wait 'till your girls hit the teen years!" And I've been like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah...I know" and shrugged it off. Well, it's turning out a lot different than I ever expected it to be. The funny thing about her at this age is that she thinks she knows [I]everything[/I]. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G! We're talkin' [B]everything[/B]. For instance, the other day we were talking about how it was warmer upstairs than it was downstairs. I nonchalantly said, "Well, that's because heat rises."

Miss Know-it-all 13 year old daughter: "No it doesn't."

Now, we all know that heat rises, and so to have my 13 year old daughter look at me and tell me that heat does not rise and actually believe that she's right and I'm wrong is quite frustrating.

"Heat does not rise, Mom," she goes on to say, "my Geography teacher said so and he's telling the truth."

So...um...is she saying that I'm lying? That she believes Mr. Geography more than...Mom? Anyhow, the other night when we were talking about it again, she admitted that yes, heat does rise. Mr. Geography was talking about something else that day. Chalk one up for Mom!:biggrin:

Anyhow, back to what I originally wanted to write in this here bloghouse. My hubby got me an iPhone for my birthday (it's a great thing), and I've been learning a lot of stuff about it ever since. For instance, I can touch "maps" on the touch screen and then type in any city I can think of in the U.S., and then type in any kind of restaurant; it doesn't even have to be the name of a restaurant, just a kind--let's say, a seafood restaurant--and every seafood restaurant in that city will pop up on the map on my little screen, and then I touch the one I want to go to and the address and directions to said restaurant pops up and I can simply touch the phone number and it will instantly call said restaurant. It's really quite amazing what you can do with this thing.

So back to my daughter. I'm sitting at the dining room table talking to her, and I thought I'd tell her that you can do this cool thing of finding any kind of restaurant anywhere in the U.S. with my new phone.

I'm going to [I]show[/I] her on my phone how you can do this you see? I just know she's going to think it's sooooo cooooool. Like I do.

I explain to her: "OK, let's say we're in San Francisco" (keep in mind, I'm picking any ole city out of my mind, and any ole kind of restaurant that pops into my head). I type in "San Francisco." She's listening to me and watching me. I go on: "Let's say we want to go to a Chinese restaurant..."

I'm about to go on and explain to her how easy this will be to find every Chinese restaurant in San Francisco, CA on my new iPhone, when she abruptly interrupts me with that [B]very serious[/B] I-know-more-than-you-do-Mom look/attitude and says, "Mom, you could just go to Chinatown."

Mom, you could just go to Chinatown?!

:err: Heavy heavy sigh. All excitement shot right down to nothin'. I couldn't help but chuckle at what she said and yell at her at the same time. So I'm yelling and giggling, and that didn't come off very good. And in the end, I never showed her the neat trick my phone can do.

Yep. It's a lot different than I thought it'd be--having a teenager. Sniffle. And my middle girl is 10 1/2 and my youngest is 6. This is only the beginning.

It's only the beginning...

Let me end this by saying that one of the pastors of my church says the best, most sincere prayer one could ever utter is 3 words, and he prays this prayer a lot, and so do I. Now that I'm at the very beginning of many years of having teenage daughters in my home, I believe I'll be praying this 3-word prayer even more. Here's the prayer (memorize it and know it well [it's very effective for any type of situation]):

[B] "Oh, God, help."[/B]

There it is.

Thanks for dropping by. Please come again.

Anne

For the record, I don't want my bloghouse to always be filled with spiritual stuff, but sometimes, if that's on my heart, that's what will spill out. Forgive me for making a mess. :4rolleyes:

Here's what's on my heart at the moment: empty wells. I get this from Jeremiah 2:13 [I]"My people have committed two sins: they have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water."

[/I]So, what exactly is an empty well? It's that thing you run to--rather than Jesus--to get a need met, except it doesn't satisfy; it's a need that can only be satisfied by Jesus Christ.

What's your empty well? I think my number one empty well is TV/movies. I tend to run to that when I'm feeling down and out and need a little pick-me-up. Sometimes, if I'm just having a stressed-out-need-to-escape-kind-of-day, I just want to watch a good movie, ya know? I want to watch Frodo and Sam struggle into Mordor and destroy the ring and defeat the evil Sauron! OK, I'm really getting lost in my thoughts here, but you know what I mean?

Another one of my empty wells is...chocolate. Let's face it, food/eating can be a very ginormous empty well in people's lives. We're lonely, sad, so let's eat! When instead, if we said, "Jesus, I just really need you to come right now and help me with this sadness--this loneliness--or else I'm going to go dive into that giant Hershey bar that it's in my fridge, or those sour cream and onion chips in that cupboard over there, and I'm pretty sure that's not going to satisfy me the way only you can. Please come, Holy Spirit. Please help me right now."

Do you realize that if you look to Jesus in those moments and ask him to come and help you, something supernatural happens? Sometimes, that lonely feeling subsides, and that need to eat is gone, or that need for Frodo and Gandalf dissipates; at least in my life. And I think Jesus is just waiting for us to call out to him instead of that empty well; he's just [I]there[/I], loving us, waiting for us to ask him to help us so he can come blow us away with his presence and satisfy us the only way he can. He's the only one who can reach those deep, dark, lonely places in our hearts. He's the only one who truly satisfies!

There are hundreds of empty wells that every one of us turn to, pretty much every single day of our lives. We all have 'em. The good thing is to recognize them, and recognize when we're turning to them, and try to get in the habit of turning to Jesus instead.

Will we always? Heck no. We're human, we fail. Every day. But just being aware can help sometimes.

So think about it. What do you think are your empty wells?

Thanks for dropping by, come again soon. :biggrin:

Anne

At the request of Lois, I am opening my own Bloghouse. Feel free to stop by and visit anytime. Does that mean I will always be here and that there will always be a post? No, it sure doesn't. :nah:

Seriously, being the starving writer that I am, I shall try to post my thoughts 'n such whenever I get an inkling. But...only when I get an inkling.

Anne

Anne