Try this...

Hi Everybody ~

I have an experiment for you to try.

(Side note: You might not want to do this out in the open like in class or in the line at the grocery store)

O.K. Here it goes…

Open your mouth. Let your jaw fall down separating your lips so that they aren’t touching. Now without moving your lips...say something, like banana or Mississippi.  It’s O.K. to try it.  You need a good laugh!

Sounds pretty silly, huh?

Did you ever realize how important your lips are to communicating! And we use them to express more than just words. Without lips, there would be no smile or pout.

And there is so much more you can do with them. 

Think of all the ways we use our lips.  Imagine holding up a cuddly baby and not being able to kiss its chubby little cheeks.

How about this; have you ever tried to take a bite of decadent chocolate truffle cake without using your lips to swoop in that last bit of chocolate from the spoon? Can we even swallow without them? I’m trying right now…Haha!! I’m going with a no on that one.

Honestly, I never thought much about thanking God for my lips till I read Psalm 12 a while back. Verse 4 penetrated my heart when I read, “…our lips are our own, who is lord over us?”

The people speaking in verses 4 are bold… and dead wrong. This verse describes cocky people who have no desire to love God or even acknowledge Him as Creator.  They show no regard for the fact that every stinking thing they have comes from Him; yes, even that pair of curvy *red lips on their face.  Yet without God’s amazing and purposeful creation of them, everyday functions we all take for granted would be impossible.

Reading these words it dawned on me… My lips are not my own! I’m simply a steward of these curves on my face. I’m sorry to say; many times I have used them as if they belonged to me. I don’t want to live like that. I don’t want to be in the group that claims their lips are their own. No, I want to live remembering they are on loan to me from God and that the LORD is Lord over me.

So today I’ll be more aware of these two fleshy puffs on my face.  I’ll thank God for them every time I use them.  But most of all, I’ll remember they are not really mine.  I pray God will be honored with my lips.   

Smile pretty today!

Love~

Rebecca

*Did you know why lips are red?  They only have three to five layers of skin as opposed to the faces’ sixteen.  The thinner skin allows the blood to appear through the skin of the lips. 

What To Do When God Wants To Make You Something You've Never Been...

     I hadn’t planned on saying it, but it rushed past my lips right after the good morning. “It feels like something inside of me is dead.”  Yep, I just flung it out there like saying, “Hey, I’ve got to stop for gas on the way home.”  I explained I just needed to get that out and I didn’t expect her to respond. Smiley face.  I really didn’t.

     The whole, I-feel-like-part-of-me-is-dead deal dawned on me that morning as I dressed to meet one of my besties for breakfast.  For several months I’d been carrying around a nagging hole.  Up until that moment I couldn’t find words to articulate it.  But now that I could put a sentence to it, perhaps I could trace it back to its source and deal with it. 

     After I dropped the bomb she froze like she didn’t know if she should take a bite of her French toast or slide down the pit to rescue me from myself. 

     I honestly didn’t mean for us to discuss it. I just needed to hear it out loud to test its validity. You know.  Sometimes saying it out loud to another person is the first step to *recovery. I know that.  That’s what I cherish about the friends God has given me.  We listen to each other’s out of the blue statements and tuck those thoughts safe in the vaults of our person till time to dissect.

     My friend wisely deciphered that my comment didn’t represent a bleeding heart requiring immediate attention, so she honored my request and took a bite.

     I blabbed on in an unusual fashion. I’m normally a listener but again, this is a bestie so we give and take as needed. Absentmindedly, I grabbed the more needy role rambling on about my crazy life before she even had a chance to take a sip of coffee.

      When realized I had dominated the breakfast with the All About Rebecca Hour I released the floor with true anticipation to hear what had transpired in her life in recent days.  She jumped in with the events, questions and discoveries in her life. But after a few minutes, she seamlessly brought the conversation back around to my opening statement.  Gracious friend…

     We dug a little deeper to see what lie at the root. 

     No, I don’t feel dead to God, and absolutely, my life bursts with blessings.  But there are parts of me that I had assumed made up the DNA of my soul. At the present they’re non-existent and have been for months. Roles and responsibilities I loved and thought of as a “life’s work” and gifts to hone. Some are dormant. Removed perhaps. Some are evaporating before my eyes. Hence, that dead feeling.

     My friend, dealing with her own bouts of deadness and loss, used herself as an example to ask me a powerful question.

     Recently she reflected on the Bible story of the man laden with palsy at the pool of Bethesda.  The first thing Jesus asked him when they met appears an odd inquiry, “Do you want to be healed?” 

     Bwahaha! Here’s a man who is so crippled he cannot function in a normal fashion. Of course he would want to be healed!

     But on second thought…

     Being healed would mean more responsibility like holding down a job. No more handouts or freebies. And with no experience or relationships outside of his crippling identity, surviving in the world would require a new way of thinking and relating to life. Maybe being healed isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. 

     So when God whispered the same question to my friend she blurted out a resounding, “No!”  She didn’t want the new thing God had for her.  She wanted the old thing fixed and made right.  That’s what she’d been holding out for God to do.

     As we fleshed out these thoughts and questions, we realized apparently God is calling us to new things.  For the record, I’m not usually crazy about new things…

     But here’s the thing about change, when we know God wants this and we refuse to accept anything but that, nice as one may be, that’s called rebellion. Oswald Chambers says, “Quit harking back to what you once were when God wants to make you something you’ve never been.”  Hmmm…

      The path I’ve enjoyed has ended and a fork in the road lies ahead.  I can stand at the dead end harking back that it’s completed; or I can move ahead in the direction God has for me.        

     With all that I know about God, can I not trust that “He who began a good work in me will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ”? 

      Why yes, I believe I can. I will set my face as a flint and move ahead.  

*Side note: That’s why the Enemy loves secrets. But inviting Godly people into your life spoils His destructive plan.