If I was able to understand and explain every single thing that God says and does then what kind of God would He be?  What kind of God would He be if Marie Armenia, in less than a lifetime, had Him all figured out?

If I could explain God to the world would the world love Him more?  I don't believe so. I used to be arrogant enough to think I was called to be His "Explainer".  I would Explain Him to my friends, and neighbors, and then they would UNDERSTAND and follow Him.  The huge responsibility of being a P.R. person for God almost did me in.  But then... in a slow and sometimes painful process I understood that we Christians are not called to explain God to the world, are we?  No we are not.  

Jesus did not say,  "You will be My Explainers."   Jesus didn't debate, cajole, beg, plead and jostle people in to following Him.  He said who He was, He said what He came to do, He explained what it meant to be His Follower and then..............................He moved on. 

He did explain things to His disciples. And He did leave a system where His followers teach,   exhort, encourage and uphold our brothers and sisters in the Lord.  But to the world....

I am called to be His "Witness".  That's what He told the early church in the first chapter of Acts.  The POWER of the Holy Spirit would turn us in to HIS WITNESSES.. the recorders of Him.  Like a witness in a court case who can say what was seen, what was heard, what he knows about the person.   In order to be His Witness, I have to KNOW Him first hand.  I have to hear His voice.  That's why Jesus said that it would take POWER.. and the POWER could only come from THE HOLY SPIRIT.   And the POWER of the HOLY SPIRIT would make JESUS so real in our innermost beings that we would "KNOW" Him. 

Don't usually post song lyrics....but... then I remembered I'm allowed to do whatever I want because this is my web page.  This song has a melody that goes like this: mmm...mmm...mmm..mmmmmm....

When The Answers Do Not Come

It wasn't very long ago I used to know it all

Wise in my own eyes, so sure that I would never fall

It wasn't very long ago, I thought I was someone

But you find out who you really are when the answers do not come

Life is hard enough with what it hands you every day

And it gets harder still by what it quickly takes away

Are days of tears and sadness still the days God's Will is done?

Here I sit in my confusion and the answers do not come

Bridge:

Lord, You hold the answers to these questions in Your hand

Hold on to me until the day I understand

Now I understand that God has questions of His own

Will days filled with confusion make me fall before His throne?

Or will these days of sadness see me take my soul and run?

Will my faith turn in to questions when the answers do not come?

Words and music by Marie Armenia

copyright 2009 Penny Hill Publishing/A.S.C.A.P./all rights reserved 

Years ago, while I was a student in a creative writing course in college, the professor took a survey.

He asked everyone in the room, "Why do you write?".  The answers varied with each student.  Some said things like, "I want my opinions to be heard", "To change the world",  "To make money".   I was frantically trying to find a profound and meaningful answer.  Unfortunately, he got to me before I could come up with something clever and profound and so my answer was the basic and most honest of all truths,  "Because I have to." 

And he turned to the class, pointed to me and said,  "Class, let me introduce you to A Writer."   Everyone looked at me.   I almost cried.  I cannot begin to tell you how that one sentence has changed my life.   Someone called me A writer....and so I became one. 

The unspoken question every creative person struggles with is "Can I really do this?  Is this really a gift I have?".  It's a tender place to be.  When you are a writer, your job is your heart.  When someone rejects it - it feels like they are rejecting you.   And then you think...why am I exposing my heart? Why am I writing a blog on a website where every one who has ever known me can come and "see" me without letting me "see" them?  Why?

Because I have to.  

I have a friend who reads this space.  And every now and then this dear person will send me an email saying, "I enjoyed your blog today."  And that one sentence, with five words, encourages me to write five thousand more. And who knows who else might be encouarged by words I write because I was encouraged by someone else's words??      Once you have been encouraged by someone else believing in you, you understand the effectiveness of encouragement.  To most people who know me, I appear as someone who has nothing but confident assurance.  Thank God for friends who see my heart and know that everyone needs encouragement now and then.  Thank you.  I love you. 

"Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing."  1 Thessalonians 5:11

Looking back a few years ago, I remember a period in our lives when Phil and I felt so alone and abandoned. 

And it seemed as if our lives were over and nothing but failure was following us.  And as we sat in our living room, we couldn't see any hope for the future.  But as we sat there in despair, thinking that God wasn't hearing us, God wasn't helping us  -  we didn't know what He did.  We couldn't see what He could. 

He was looking forward.  And that HE knew THAT day that THIS day would arrive. That one day I would be SO happy that I wouldn't be able to contain it.  That one day we would be happy again. Happier than ever.  More at peace than ever. 

More everything than ever.  He saw today back then.   Looking back, I am so thankful He didn't let go of me.. even when I thought He was dropping the ball.  Looking back, I can honestly say, that I am thankful for that confusing, painful time.  Because it caused us to get up and be where we are today. 

And so, if you're reading this and you feel like God doesn't hear you, God doesn't care......trust me.. and trust Him.  Someday you'll be looking back on today and you will see that what you are going through today will someday fade so completely from your memory and your heart that

looking back...you will hardly remember what you were crying about. 

I love the stuff that God did not leave out of the Bible.  All the weaknesses and flaws of human beings  - He kept in there.  All the failures of the heroes of the Bible - He kept in there.   It's not that God is condoning it all, but simply showing us an accurate portrait of ourselves.

But I especially appreciate that He allowed us to see the struggle of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. God was honest with us.  He didn't try to make His Son look like Superman.  He allowed us to see that even though He was God, Jesus was also human. And the human side of Him didn't want to die.   And showing us that it wasn't easy for Jesus to allow God to crucify His flesh.  And Jesus asked His Father - "if it be possible let this death thing, this cup - pass from me."   

Oh, that gives me such comfort to know that even Jesus, the only Son of God Himself, struggled when it came time to submit to God's will. It isn't easy to do God's will.  It isn't easy to crucify everything our flesh and human nature desires.  And that's the point - Why do we think it should  be easy to crucify our flesh?  It isn't easy - but it's essential.  It's called obedience.  And in the King James version of the Bible, it has Jesus saying a word that changed the course of the Universe. 

He said, "Nevertheless........not my will but Thine be done."  "Nevertheless" - "Even if I have to die, Father, so be it.  Your will is more important than my plans.  Your will is more important than my desire to live a pain free life.  Your will is more important than anything on earth and in the Universe" .  

And we know the end of the Jesus story.  God raised Him from the dead. Hello?  Raised. From. The Dead.  Nice story.  Good for Jesus. No. good for us.. too.  Jesus is seated at the right hand of God Himself. He has provided a way out of eternal DEATH for anyone who believes in His shed Blood. His nevertheless changed MY Universe.  It changed my future.  I was supposed to be eternally separated from God - and now I am His child.  His LOVED adn BELOVED child.   Jesus obedience to God had a direct impact on me.  My obedience to God will have a direct impact on those around me.

It wasn't easy for Jesus to be the Lamb of God - nevertheless - He was.   And His "nevertheless" changed the Universe - forever.  My "nevertheless" will change my Universe  - and -   your "nevertheless" will change yours.

There's something amazingly healing when you can hear the words, "I know what you're going through - I know how you feel." - and know that the person who just said those words is telling you the actual, factual TRUTH. 

That's why we have organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous, Weight Watchers, Gamblers Anonymous and so on.  We get hope when someone else tells us, "I've been where you are and I've defeated what's defeating you at the moment."

The Bible says this about Jesus,  "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way , just as we are—yet was without sin."  

This is an astounding verse.  Not only because it says that Jesus did not sin, but because it says He was "tempted just as we are". And we means me and you.  We forget that in His humanity.. Jesus was tempted on a daily basis.. more than we will ever know.  Satan KNEW who Jesus was.  If he torments us with thoughts of sin, how much more did he attack our Lord?   

This verse must be truth for every human being who ever reads it.  Everyone who reads the words, "tempted as we are" must know that it's true for them.  That Jesus was tempted with the very sin that is tempting - and defeating - them.

And the God's honest truth is that NO MATTER HOW DISGUSTING YOUR SIN IS... (and all sin is disgusting to God).. and no matter how much you hate yourself for indulging in such a disgusting thing... Jesus can ACTUALLY say to you, "I know how you feel - I know what you're going through".  

But being tempted is not the same as sinning. And Jesus did not sin. And because He did not sin......He DEFEATED that sin when He paid the price for it, with His Blood on the Cross. 

  "I know what you're going through"... Jesus can say that and then He can say, "but I defeated it." Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need  Hebrews 4:15-16

I think the only thing sadder than people who think they are too good for God is people who believe they are not good enough to cry out for mercy from God. 

So every now and then, some of you post some of your really wonderful comments on the "sign my guestbook" page.  I've been able to keep in touch with people I haven't spoken to in decades.  People who were looking for me and found me here. It's simply wonderful. 

Last night, at about 9 PM Central Time, one of my secret admirers left me a note which read something like:  "@#%)kk;kjd;ljkf;kljj http//sd;lkjdflkj00.ocm" and so forth.   This person  leaves these notes every couple of weeks.  Why??  I don't have a single clue. At least he/she is reading the blog. 

But..the funny thing is that, evidently, this person doesn't realize that some information does come through like -  IP address and the city and state and internet connect company.  So it isn't really difficult for me to who is leaving these !@@ja;lf0-0385089 notes.  I won't say anything to  because I don't want to embarrass this person for doing such a silly thing. (Although.. I guess that now my secret is revealed, isn't it????)

It got me thinking about myself and God.   How silly I am to think that I can do things and somehow God will not be able to guess that I'm doing them.  Or say things and God not hear that I'm saying them. Or think things and convince myself He can't know it. Or that anything is hidden from His sight.   Anything in my heart.  Or anything I do.  "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account."  Hebrews 4:13

What do you do with your dust?  Seriously.   When you clean behind the refrigerator, under the sofa cushions, behind the headboard...you know.. the places that dust gathers. What do you do with your dust?  You pick it up and throw it away. Who keeps dust? 

Evidently..... God does.  Not only does He keep dust, but He forms the dust in to His image.  And breathes life in to it.  And when the Dust decides it is smarter than it's Creator, the Creator gives His Son to die for dust.   Who dies for dust?  Evidently, God's Only Son does.  

And when  we fail and trip up - God remembers  - all the time - that we are dust.  Just. Dust.  He doesn't expect a great deal from dust.   As a father has compassion on a child,  God  has fatherly compassion on "those who fear Him."  Not everybody.. but those people who walk in reverent respect before Him - to those people -   He has fatherly compassion because He formed us.. and if anyone should know.. God knows and remembers that we're just dust.  Just... dust.

It does bring great comfort to know that God knows how weak we are.  The comfort of His mercy toward us....is outstanding.  I wonder though if sometimes WE should remember that we are just dust. 

What do you expect from your dust? 

Your spouse = dust.

Your boss = dust.

Your pastor = dust.

Your parents = dust.

Your children = dust. 

Your leaders = dust.

Your friends = dust.

You = dust. 

What do you expect from your dust? Why do we expect more from dust than God does?   God forgives His dust (you).  Make a clean sweep of your heart today.  Forgive your dust.

"He knows how we are formed; he remembers that we are dust"  Psalm 103:14