The Cards Have Been Dealt 

You are not the cards you have been dealt. 

Maybe the cards you have seem worthless in the game you're playing. 

But the truth is you can lose off a winning hand, you can win on a bad hand. 

The trick is not the cards you have, but the way you play them. Maybe the problem is that you’re playing the wrong game. Maybe you’re too caught up in how bad your cards are that you’re not seeing the way to win. 

Sometimes you have to loose a hand to win the game, or maybe loosing a game helps someone who needs a win more.
There is more than one outcome in a game, and winning is not all measured by the same stick. 

The point is you are not the cards you have, in any game, just as in life. Whether or not you win depends largely on your attitude towards what you have.
The secret with playing any game is looking at what you have, rather than wishing for what you don’t. No single card wins a game, rather it is the way you play it. Play your cards like its the hand you hoped for. 

And with any win you achieve, achieve it with honesty. Someone who isn’t playing the game never really wins. 

Coal. 

Every dream, everything that we seek God for is a like a hot coal.
If we hold it to ourselves it will go cold, losing its spark and heat, but not before it burns our hands. The tighter we hold it the more it will burn and blister our hands, and the coal will die and our burns and worry will have been for nothing, our dreams will die.

But if we give our hot coals over to God He will work wondrously.
Every dream we have that would hurt us-He will take those coals and let them go cold, without burning us first.

Every dream we have that God is pleased with He will take that coal and build us a fire, sustaining the dream, creating a fire of motivation within ourselves, and if we use it to warm ourselves, if we stoke it, He will continue to add fuel to the fire, growing us in our motivation and determination and excitement for our dreams.
With these dreams, we will see a wildfire run its course.

For every coal we have that we try to turn to fire ourselves not only do we burn ourselves but it will likely die on its own-we will soon lose interest or it will be too hard because we won’t have God to add fuel, you cannot stoke a single coal.
And for every coal that we try to turn to fire ourselves that God sees will harm us, He will cause great rains and floods to extinguish our coal.
Not only will we have no fire to warm us; but the water will leave us twice cold-wet and shivering with nothing to put our energy into. And we will bemoan God and feel deserted even though He was saving us.

If every dream is a coal, hot and burning, we must include Him, allow Him to build the fire of our desire so that we may avoid burning ourselves and so that we may have God to provide for us and share in our joy.

 WE ARE EVE...

I rode off Eve, assumed there was nothing she had to teach me.
It was foolish on my part because I know all of those stories have purpose,
I just assumed her purpose was to be the first woman, alongside Adam in the garden,
the two of them bringing sin into the world.
I never thought highly of her, I really should have known better…

I believed the story the way it had always been told to me, in a culture that I understood,
I never considered that Eve could be truly equal, she sinned, and to me that tainted her.
But really the question is why did I let that get in the way? I sin to, by my own standards that makes me a ride-off, and maybe for a while I believed I was a ride off.

Eve is significant. It wasn’t until I read the story for myself that I understood who she was.
Eve is not an act of sin, we define her by it, but it is not the reason she was created.
Eve was created out of an act of love, she was formed out of a half, and together they make a whole.
She is half, not the little half, not even the big half, but a side of her own. And I think we deny her that.

I never thought I would identify with Eve, other than the fact that I too am female.
But truth be told I fight like Eve,
I resist what I am told, I argue and fight, refusing to do the wrong thing.
I’ve given in like Eve, not wanting to cause trouble, falling down so that I do not stand above others.
I always want to do the right thing. 

Eve sinned, she knew she was sinning, but given she had never experienced an absence of the closeness of God it would have been hard to fathom the extent of what she did.
I’ve sinned like Eve, knowing exactly what I was giving up, haven’t we all? 

I don’t excuse her, but that’s not my job. She was judged and punished by God so its not for me to decide she is more or less than who God said she was.
But I refuse to believe that she was weak, that we must consider her less, I refuse to pass harsh judgement when I should not even be judging. 

I think I underestimate her, and it wasn’t until I stopped reading her the way I was told, that I stopped reading her in my own context and culture that I truly began to understand Eve.  

Rejoice 

 

And so, when God comes through for you; when he relieves you of your suffering and anguish, when he delivers you to safety, when his promises and prophesies are fulfilled, when he blesses you; make sure to rejoice.
Shout with joy, and with grateful hearts sing praises to his name.
Let everyone know the joy in the hope that you have. Your family will see the work of God and surely even your neighbor will know the faithfulness of your God. Your struggle will become a testimony and encouragement for those around you.
But speak his name for your own benefit also; this way you no longer will hold back from God; but your heart will understand and carry memory of the goodness of God and you will become confident in trusting God again.
When you speak aloud your triumphs of faith you renew your vigour for remaining faithful to God.
No longer do you have any stories about how you struggled and waited, but instead you have glad testimonies of the work of God in your life.
Give credit to God when your season of suffering ends; be thankful when he blesses you. Shout with joy and sing praise.
So that your neighbour will know, and your heart will understand that God has done a work for you, and will continue to work and come through for you. That He can be trusted.

 One For The Haters

(and the rest of us)

There had always been a numbing down of truth, to make things palatable, easier to understand, leaving us with a simplification of the act and the truth of all it really means. It was not just an act, it was a hundred things, individually, simultaneously and unified by the one act.
Until after so many different retellings it was mere news, of moderate significance to an ever changing border of who acceptable people were, and who we might exclude to make ourselves feel better.
I will never forget the sternness of the man who spoke earnestly, leaning over the dinner table as he lectured, my mind adding to his rich words as I sort to understand the fullness and passion of what he was speaking about, an idea I never knew I had not fully grasped, and now understand fully that I never will.
There is no love, to exist or ever have existed, that would have a loving father sacrifice the son he loves most dearly and is most pleased with, in a way that calls into question his rightful title as king as he is treated likewise among criminals, to save generations of every person who has or will ever walk the earth. People, who hate, despise, blame or will never even know his name.
There is no love, matching or equal, to one who sacrifices such for people who hate him.
None of this, to a well-seasoned person of faith is really new information; we are told it was news for all people. But how often do we simply sit to try and grasp that a man died for those who hated him and spat on him, and how great a sacrifice was that? Those who ridicule those of us of faith, who assume to know us and what we believe don’t know what a call to arms we have been served, the example set before us. That this was good news of great joy for all people.
This knowledge is not a measuring stick of how well we stack up against the example set before us, because to understand anything of this is to understand that we will never match up. To understand this is to put the most devout, hardworking Christians on the same level as the haters.
It is sin that separates us from God. Sin is not necessarily an act from a list of bad things, but rather any time that we fall short of the glory of God. If my aim is to jump a puddle and I miss I have not done a wrong thing in jumping, but that does not mean I haven’t fallen short of the edge of the puddle, and no matter how much I claim to love the rain I become as wet as someone who hates the rain, we are equal in the misery of falling short, but equally able to accept help and try again, and sometimes follow the wise advice to not jump puddles too big for us.
No matter how many times we fall short, no matter our previous stance on the act of Jesus there is no condemnation or shame or anger that truly separates any of us, there are no rungs on a ladder of who is a more adequate recipient, and I, even now, find myself at a complete loss of words that I am forgiven every time, that I am freely loved over and over. And I am no better than anyone else; I sit right beside the haters as an equal benefactor of this freewill gift. He was the one for those who loved him, one for those who needed him, and one for those who will hate him.