Proverbs 17:9
Whoever would foster love covers over an offense, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.

Proverbs 19:11
A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.

It’s to your GLORY to overlook an offense.  Your glory?…  Yes,  you will be praised(gloried) by the Almighty for overlooking an offense,  and it shows your wisdom and patience to do so.

The world says, “you deserve to be mad”, the Word says “overlook it to show your wisdom and patience”.  Wow!  that’s tough sometimes, but every time I’ve decided to believe the Word and act on it, I’ve been blessed.   Especially as it relates to taking offense….I’ve decided to think the best and forgive the rest.

So instead of defusing the situation with an apology everything escalated. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get in there to turn the car off….it was veeeery frustrating.     And of course the car made me mad!  I was sooo mad that car had  locked itself when I pushed the button.   The car actually made me snap at my kids.  I know you can’t identify at all….but try to feel the frustration with me for a moment.

As women when things get out of control, we must fix them. And when we can’t we become frustrated and then the blame game begins. We are willing to blame everyone and everything else, so that we still look like we have it together.  Trying to fix other people instead of focusing on your own walk and becoming all God’s made you to be is a prescription for frustration and failure.  We are all inclined to do it however….the Lord addressed this tendency in the bible.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?
Matthew 7:2-4

A plank in the eye is a very uncomfortable condition…..especially when you’re trying to remove it by looking elsewhere. Though we may feel vulnerable, it’s  time we looked on the inside and realize there are things that need to change for us to become all that God has called us to be.

As I’ve shared on previous posts, John Maxwell is one of my favorite authors on the subject of leadership.  The same principles that make you a success in marriage, will work for your good in other areas of life as well.   When you’re stuck in the “how do I change my spouse, boss, co-worker?” mode, you’re in a constant state of frustration.  It’s like wearing cute  shoes that look good but don’t fit well( which I’m in the habit of doing)   You can live with it for a while, but you can’t go the distance in them.    Defeat is always at your doorstep, and hope is gone because you can feel you have no power.

The Lord gives you NO strength or power to do His job.  He will, however, give you all kinds of strength, power and blessing to do yours.    He will favor you and bless you for your obedience.  Find out if there is any unclean way in you, agree with God about it and confess it.  Then act on what God’s shown you….really want to change.

Look at the benefits of contrition….identifying your own sin and repenting of it.

For this is what the high and exalted One says— he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.  Isa 57:15

Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?” declares the LORD. “These are the ones I look on with favor: those who are humble and contrite in spirit, and who tremble at my word.  Isa 66:2

Wow….let that sink in God…You will live with me, revive my spirit and heart….You will favor me.      Lord I want to focus on other people and how they can and should improve, but you want me to focus my attention on  my own heart and life.   That’s hard,  because it makes my flesh feel good when I  think about  the deficiencies in other people…especially my husband.  I like to feel “right”.     I want a contrite heart that you might favor me oh God.  I will look at myself and take the huge log out of my own eye, because you desire it and that’s all I need to know.   I won’t wait until I “feel ” like doing it, I chose to obey right now.

You know there’s real power in  contrition.  Because my thoughts, feelings and actions are really the only things within my control, a sense of power and then incredible hope come when I decide to be sorry and be better.  I so wish I would’ve realized this sooner.  The incredible power and hope that come from  going to God and saying “show me if there is any unclean way in me” and then saying I’m sorry God .  I’ll do that differently from now on.  I had fallen into the trap of focusing on what was completely out of my control ( everyone else’s thoughts,feelings and actions), that’s a prescription for frustration and hopelessness.

Henry Blackably says in “Experiencing God” , “you can’t stay and go with God” .  I ‘ve found that to be so true.  You have to grow somewhere you’ve never been before, to go somewhere you’ve never been before.  You really  can’t stay and go with God.  You can’t stay the same and go to awesome abundant  places God  has for you.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about works-based salvation or getting God to  somehow love you more.  No, I’m talking about your awesome, abundant life here on Earth.  There is an  old  and true saying  “Sin  always takes you further than you meant to go, keeps you longer than you meant to stay and costs you more than you ever intended to pay”.   My prayer is that you don’t pay with your marriage and family,  sister.    Own your own sin, confess it , repent and actually change and feel the power of a contrite heart.      Take your eyes off of everyone else and put them on your own heart….and feel the power…. and crazy great hope that comes.

Psalm 51

For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. ¹ Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. ² Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. ³ For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. ⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge. ⁵ Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. ⁶ Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place. ⁷ Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. ⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. ⁹ Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. ¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. ¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. ¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. ¹³ Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you. ¹⁴ Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, you who are God my Savior, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. ¹⁵ Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise. ¹⁶ You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. ¹⁷ My sacrifice, O God, is^[b] a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. ¹⁸ May it please you to prosper Zion, to build up the walls of Jerusalem. ¹⁹ Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous, in burnt offerings offered whole; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Any real life change must start with  a realistic look at yourself and what God may want to change about you or your thinking.   Many times I compare myself to other people.  Typically,  I try and  choose people who make me look good.   “Well, I’m not soooo bad compared to her.”  But God wants us to measure ourselves by His standard,  to “find out what pleases the Lord” so to speak.   When I do this, I begin to feel more like David felt when he wrote this Psalm.  In my humble opinion, there’s no greater stinker than a christian without a contrite heart.  We can be so self-righteous and become focused on all the wrong things,  when we aren’t in the regular habit of humbling ourselves before God and confessing our sin .   In my experience,  one of the greatest stumbling blocks that the lost have,  are the Christians who “feel good about themselves”. Neither my husband or myself have ever been unfaithful in a physical sense, but I had been unfaithfully desiring a different kind of husband.  I was desiring a husband who provided better financially, so I could stay home with my kids….  a more thoughtful husband who didn’t leave his socks on the floor or his dirty dishes in the sink.   Perhaps even a husband who had a less demanding job.  Someone who was more thoughtful, who never lost his temper or who would ask for directions sooner…..    David’s sin was physical, mine emotional….still sin. My life began to change when I began to take responsibility for  the only variable within my control…. me.  I asked God to show me my sin and He was faithful to oblige.

Yes!  Crazy….  How many times do we find ourselves reserving the worst part of ourselves for those we love best?   God challenged me to give the best part of myself, my very best effort to those I love (or should love)best.  I know that that sounds soooo basic, but it was basically not happening in my marriage.

I began to “fix” myself by asking God to show me where and how He wanted me to change.  I realized that the  conflict happening in my marriage may be an indicator of the areas where  God wanted to change me.  I prayed Psalm 51:10-12 and 16&17……a lot.

Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
¹⁷ My sacrifice, O God, is^[b] a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.

My sacrifice was a broken spirit and contrite heart.  I was finally willing to look at my own sin and say “create in me a pure heart” and mean it.  This one attitude change would prove to be the start of something incredible.

I have a wonderful husband and an awesome marriage today,  but that wasn’t always the case. There was a time when I wanted to pretty much die rather than stay married, that was about 18 years ago ( I’ve been married for 27 years). Not only did my husband and I not love each other, we didn’t even like each other. I really meant it when I said I would’ve rather died than stayed married, that was not an exaggeration. We were at war with each other about everything. We were in competition with each other….who was in control, who was right, who knew best how to raise the kids, spend money, organize the house…..WAR.   I was teaching a couple’s Sunday school class at the time and he was a minster of music.  Really…..not only were we  in church all the time, we were on staff. Except for the janitor, we  were first to get there and last to leave and our marriage was falling apart. I remember praying “Lord I know that you hate divorce and that you love me completely, so I must be missing something. I want to leave soooo badly, but I know it’s not your will. Either you are actually mean or I’m really messed up”

Over the next few posts I’ll be sharing how the Lord completely transformed my marriage and home. Hopefully your marriage isn’t singing it’s swan song, maybe you feel it could just be better. My prayer is that you’ll have the marriage God intended you to have. I believe you can because I’ve lived it.

I wanted to chat a bit about the loneliness of leadership and what a blessing it’s been in my life.
You know I’m around people all the time and yet I find myself getting lonely sometimes. I’m either their leader in the business world, or their Pastor’s wife and can’t really be completely myself sometimes. I can’t spout off, go off or goof off when it comes to my role in their lives. I’m privileged to live out the sacrifice of leadership in both my business and my church life. I get lonely sometimes even though I’m with people all the time. I rely a lot on my close friendship with my husband and that’s so great, but I’ve also learned to rely on God in a whole different way. I know that I can trust my husband to keep a confidence, to love me unconditionally and support me no matter what…. come what may. My relationship with my husband is deeper because of our reliance on each other as friends. But also my friendship with God has grown sweeter, more intimate because of the leadership positions I hold.
Don’t get me wrong I’ve been blessed with so many incredibly close friendships, beautiful friends who love me well. I’m so thankful for them, but unless they are ministry wives themselves it’s hard to understand the path you walk.

There’s no one on Earth who loves me more completely or knows me more intimately than God. He’s not shocked by my shallowness or made unsteady by my occasional failures of faith. I can be completely me. I can pour out my heart to him and he loves me just the same. I love helping people and I’m sure you do too. I listen a lot and I consider it an incredible blessing to be used by God in people’s lives. Never discount the blessing of loneliness that comes from the sacrifice of leadership. You will rely on God in a way that will satisfy you and you’ll know you’re never alone.

Psalm 91

⁹If you say, “The LORD is my refuge,”
and you make the Most High your dwelling,
¹⁰ no harm will overtake you,
no disaster will come near your tent.
¹¹ For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
¹² they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
¹³ You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

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