Just Another Day of Getting Bopped Upside the Head...

So I started to sit down and write something yesterday, and the thing that kept coming to mind was...God Uses Frying Pans.  He is totally whacking me upside the head - and He isn't using a little two-cup sauce pan, oh no sireee, he has pulled out the 15" cast-iron skillet!  A more loving term, might be called Affirmation...God is affirming, day after day, after day, after day, after day, the message he wants me to absorb.  Being the sweet (relative to the situation - I know), stubborn (probably won't get too many arguments there), red-head (enhanced with blond, because everyone else gets their hair did too!) that I am, I am pretty sure He decided a long time ago that a little more force was needed, and as always, God is so very right.  Sometimes He gently affirms and then when we finally say "oh, I see what you were doing there", then he bops us with "Hello!? Took you long enough!".

Can we not totally relate to this?  If you have kids, you have beaten many a dead horse to get a point across or have stood in defeat as another basic life lesson has floated beyond the boundary of some current reality.  For example:  Baseball game tomorrow - Uniform is STILL in the dirty laundry basket.  From. Last. Week. I should point out here that I have not done my children's laundry for about four plus years - this has worked out AwEsOmE (pretend you are singing that word) and holds me completely unaccountable for pink underwear, lost socks, and "why does my AS new shirt from last week now fit like a 3T?".  Blissful.  However, things we have known about all week, i.e. forgotten uniforms...Bop.  Ten o'clock at night and we need supplies for a presentation that is due in first hour...tomorrow.  Bop.  I didn't know your hair was red...Bop.

So here is the bop breakdown for March:
March 11 - Wednesday night CONNECT service at church:  Topic of sermon:  Distraction.
March 11 - (yes, same night) Speaker at Women's Bible Study:  "Your blessings can be your biggest distraction".
March 13 - Chuck Swindoll: Sometimes it is a hassle to be happy, efficient, productive, AND content.  Before long, it is not even on your agenda. 
March 2015 InTouch article 'Stay Boldly Still':  "We are prone to take action, not because we are confident men of God, but because too often, we have no confidence in God.  Part of our worry is that God's purposes are different than our own.  I have tried to be self-made, and all I have made of myself is a mess.  I need the Lord's courage to guide me where He would have me go, to give me words to speak and silence when my words are not needed.  A courage to lose this life, in order that he would save it".  (I read this article 3x, and cried all 3x - in my heart, I wrote these words). 
March 15 - Face to Faith Devotion:  Martha was distracted by many things.
March 24 - Pursuit of His Presence Devotion:  We ALLOW ourselves to become tangled in the temporary affairs of this world. 

Can you visualize the frying pan each time?  I sure can and my head is spinning - I wrote an "inspiration" on the topic of Distraction, because the cast-iron skillet told me to.  So I don't want to share all that the month of March brought for me until after I share it with my CONNECT peeps, just wanted you to see the process of 'The Bop'.

So far in April:
-Stuffed my Nissan Armada TWICE, full-to-the-top, seats all the way down, of 'just stuff' and drove it to donate to our Annual Church Thrift Sale.
-Read Jen Hatmaker's 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess (talks about poverty)
-Read Max Lucado:  Live to Make a Difference (talks about poverty)
-Read Jen Hatmaker's Interuppted (talks about serving those in poverty)
-Introduced "Blessing Bags" to our CONNECT service (Google them, you will be glad you did!)
-Attended Church Basic Lay Leader training, where, I kid you not, half of God's people in my course were Food Bank Volunteers and consequently I had to share my story of having to use our local Food Bank during 'The Incident'.
-Paid $5 to get into an event to look at 'stuff' and heard " you could feed two children for two full days in Africa for that cover".

Bop, bop, bop (bop to the top - for my co-parents who survived the High School Musical Era).

So again I gently affirm with you, I have no idea where this is headed.  But I do know that I have a skillet within reach and should probably be looking up recipes for humble pie.

My Pursuit of His Presence on April 17th shared Hebrews 3:14-15 
'For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ.  Remember what it says:  "Today when you hear His voice, don't harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled."'
It DOES NOT matter how you look or what you have, it matters that you obey!  Let the image of Jesus come forth instead of the image you had for yourself.  WHATEVER God is telling you today, or HAS BEEN telling you for sometime now - Do it!  Rise up and Obey!  (All Caps is my emphasis and "I hear ya, I hear ya! Awesome! Hallelujah! Amen! is all I can say).

At the start of the year, I began writing down something from each devotion I read or passage I highlighted, and I am amazed at how many times God has bopped me just in my daily reading.  It is as powerful as a 15" cast-iron skillet people.  It is next-level, heavy stuff and not for the faint of heart - it is a call to "lose this life, in order that He would save it" and trying to figure it all out can be, well, a little lonely, and lonely is scary.  It is again, stepping out of that comfort zone. 

It is easy to be the giver of the bop, but what do you do when you are the receiver of the bop?

Romans 10:14 'How shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?  And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?  And how shall they hear with out a preacher?

If we don't speak, how will they hear?  Who will be saved?  It is crazy easy to get distracted in this world and I am holding the mirror, I get it, I do.  It is beyond easy, or more honestly convenient, to think that someone else is feeding people going through hard times...but if you are reading this, maybe God is gently, affirmingly (spell check does not like my new word), bopping you on the head.  Get a hold of me sometime...we will compare lumps!