This blog entry is a review of the DVD lesson that we had on Monday night. For those ladies at BCBC that are signed up for the study, but missed out on the evening, I’d like to get you caught up on what you missed.

Elizabeth was married to a Christian husband, but she was unsaved. Their unequal yoke brought many difficulties to their marriage. After five years they had two daughters. Their home was one of real chaos because there was no leader; no directives to follow. She left her girls at daycare to follow a career in counseling, causing even more disorder in their lives. Life stayed busy with dropping the girls off before daylight and picking them after sunset, then coming home to feed and bathe them, get them to bed, and then getting up the next day to begin it all again. “No home will ever be a heaven on earth when you are neglecting the marriage, the family or the home, and I was three for three!”

But at the age of 28, the Lord saved Elizabeth and she became a new creature in Christ.. II Corinthians 5:17 Now she was God’s child and for the very first time she had something to live her life by – the Bible. She began building her life on the sure foundations of the Word of God. The Holy Spirit began working in her life and changing her heart and making it one for Him. She had a hunger for the Word and devoured its Truths and sought to obey it. She lifted her Bible up to show us and it is tattered and torn, and it’s her third copy of the Scriptures! It reminded me of the saying, “A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who is not!” That’s certainly true of Elizabeth. She loves God’s Word and sweetly studies it and shares it with others.

In Isaiah 40:31 we read about the eagles. Elizabeth and her husband, George, live in the Olympic Peninsula in the state of Washington and God has given them an eagle that flies past their house early in the morning. They watch for it and have learned many things about eagles, and about waiting on the Lord. Elizabeth said that in the spiritual realm as we wait on the Lord we are rewarded for our patience. We have His strength for our trials for that day. Here in God’s Word he give us a visual aid of what He wants us to do when it comes to His Word – to be a woman after God’s heart. We must be like the eagle and tend to first things first.

How does your day begin? With the alarm clock beeping? Hitting the freeway to get to the job or the kids to school? We usually begin by thinking, “Oh no! Not another day!” There are so many things to do and we feel overwhelmed. But God’s Word says “this is the day the Lord hath made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.” We look at all the things that need to be done and we think “I’ll never get it all done – and I’ll really never get it all done if I take time to read my Bible and pray!” But the exact opposite is true. John 15:5 says, Without me, you can do nothing. And the contrast in the Word tells us that we can do all things through Christ’s strength. We must tend to first things first. We must spend time in God’s Word and prayer. Our problem isn’t organizational skills – we’ve got that down! But we need to learn to manage our spiritual life.

Here is a three-step method she encourages us to follow:

1. Time – We must give time to spend in God’s Word. II Timothy 3:16-17 says that all Scripture is profitable. That means that we’re never wasting time when we spend it studying our Bible.
2. First time – Like that eagle, first things first. Proverbs 3:9,10 Time is a substance that we all have. We need to give God the first bit of time we have been given in the morning. We are blessed in our spiritual lives when we give God the first portion of the harvest of every single day. We’re given 1,440 minutes every day as a gift. Couldn’t we give some of that back to Him?
3. Early time – So many Psalm 63:1 – David said, “Early will I seek thee; my soul thirsts for you.” Abraham met early with God. There was a place and a time. In Mark 1:35 Jesus rose up early in the morning and went to a solitary place and there prayed. We have so many examples in the Scriptures of saints who sought God early. We need to get our spiritual food for the day to prepare us for what is coming.

Meet with God before the heat comes on, before other predators come and steal away your time, and before the pressures of the day. You know how all day long – you were going to meet with God, you were going to spend time in prayer…”as soon as I do this load of laundry, as soon as I get done with this phone call, as soon I get the dishes off the table, I’m going to meet with God!” Then later that night you lay your head on the pillow and think to yourself, “I never did it! I never spent time with the Lord.” This will help – time, first time, early time.

Remember – you’re never wasting time when you spend time with God! If this is the only thing you got done all day, it would have been a profitable day!

Yes, but how?

• Refuse to miss a day
• Be a woman of one book – The Book!
• Get up before your family does
• Purpose to get up

Ladies, my prayers are with you as you begin the lessons in your book this month. Begin by doing Week One in your book. You will have the whole month of October to do five days of study! Do a little bit each day. Follow Elizabeth’s encouragement as stated above and saturate your heart with the study of the Word and prayer so that at the end of this first month you will see that you are becoming a woman after God’s own heart!

Yesterday morning when I was having my prayer time the Lord whispered something in my heart that I thought about all day long. I prayed, as I often do, that the Lord would direct my steps for the day ahead. As I said that the Lord brought to my mind the thought that He is indeed concerned with each little step I take all through the day. I don’t know about you, but when I think about the Lord directing my steps, I think of chunks of time – a morning or an afternoon. Or sometimes even larger things are considered in the Lord directing our steps, like our career or our marriage. But at that moment that I was praying the Lord very clearly reminded me that He will literally direct me as I place one foot in front of the other.

Since God directs each one of our steps that means He is watching over each of us! Just as a parent whose baby is taking its first steps and the parents are very near, ready to stabilize the little one if they stumble, or ready to turn them away from an area that could be dangerous, our God is watching over each part of our lives.

It also mean that God is in control of our steps. Because He is a sovereign God He is the One who turns us this way or that. He leads us where we need to be.

Not long after my prayer time we got the news that the brother of our music leader had died in a motorcycle accident just a few hours earlier. How our hearts are saddened for their family! I was taken back to what the Lord had taught me in prayer – He directed Troy’s steps, and his motorcycle. God didn’t get caught unaware. He never lost control of His child. Yes, even the steps that might lead to our death are directed by a sovereign God.

Lastly, as I think about my God directing our steps I’m reminded that He loves us. Why would He care to watch over my steps? I’m a nobody! But He loves me enough to be there for each decision, each word, each action that goes on in my life today. He loves you too, dear friend.

Look down and your feet and be reminded that He’s directing your steps – every single one of them. What a wonderful God He is!

A Couple times every week someone asks me the question, “So, how’s the empty nest?” We have been empty-nesters for a month now, and I can honestly say, “It’s wonderful!” I miss our girls, but the truth is, we prepared them to leave home, as we also prepared ourselves. We did that by staying in love and spending time together while they were growing up.

Our youngest is enjoying college life and is facing its challenges by trusting the Lord – not Mom and Dad. What a blessing! She’s had a bout or two of mild homesickness, but has pulled through with the Lord’s help. We talk to her via phone call or text usually once a day, sometimes every other day, depending on both our schedules.

As for us nesters, we are enjoying the freedom to come and go, the flexibility of our schedule, and our time together. We’ve found that we still have to plan for a date night just as when our daughters were home. It would be very easy to stay busy from morning to night and not take time to be together. So, to protect our time, we’ve planned things on the calendar. Octobers’ Mondays have some short little day trips planned. We’re going to Dollywood one week and the Blueridge Parkway another. Other weeks will find us doing inexpensive dates near home.

Yesterday was the first really chilly fall day we’ve had. I suggested we have a movie date night on the deck, since we didn’t have a date on Monday due to church activities. At about 8:00 pm we plugged the laptop into the outside outlet and set it on a small table in front of our glider/swing. I popped some popcorn, gathered some warm blankets and we headed outside for a “swing-in movie” (as opposed to a drive-in!). We watched one of my favorites and laughed, munched our snack and sipped hot chocolate. It was just fun being outside on a chilly night and snuggling together to watch a movie.

We live in a world that expects everything to be obtained quickly. As I considered this I thought of:

The list could go on and on. The point is – we expect to be taken care of quickly, do what we need to do quickly, and we want others to move quickly too! If that doesn’t happen, we let others know our displeasure by our words or attitude.

However, there are some areas in which the word “quick” just isn’t acceptable. The one I’m referring to today is that of spiritual growth. There is just no way to mature in the Lord quickly. I referred in another post to a book I’m reading entitled, A Long Obedience. The author’s point is that in order to grow, we must continue on the path of obedience, and we must keep at it for the long-haul. If there were some shot or pill to take that would guarantee spiritual maturity how many would jump in line? It just cannot be! Instead, we must study the Word, obey it, apply it, and pray to our Heavenly Father to use it in our lives. The teaching of the Truth can be a long, hard process, and it is part of the growth that often makes us squirm.

Our ladies’ group has just started a ten-month Bible study on being a woman after God’s heart. We had fifty ladies sign up for the study. How wonderful! Come next June I pray there will still be fifty (or even more) that are finishing the course and finding their hearts more like our God’s. We cannot jump in expecting to have a heart like His by next month. It won’t even happen if we jump in, then out, then back in again. No, it must be by a long obedience. I am praying for each of you that are a part of our study. Let’s run this race with patience and keep our eyes on the goal – that of becoming like our Savior.

By the way, what “instant” product would you love to come on the market?

I can’t believe it’s Friday already. This has been another busy week for me. I pray you’ve had a productive one. Here we sit looking into the weekend. As I think about and prepare for going to church on Sunday I’m reminded of a story my dad told me last night when we were on the phone.