The Home Photo Challenge was fun for me last year. Since I do not think much is going to be changing for me in the way of travel this year, I am going to continue the challenge for myself into 2021. This year I am going to add a little twist. I will give a brief description of each photo I take and write a Haiku to go along with it.
IF YOU WANT TO JOIN IN THE FUN.JUST TAKE A PHOTO IN OR AROUND YOUR HOME AND WRITE YOUR OWN BLOG AND POST THE LINK IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW IT.
Yesterday was a very busy DLT day. If you don’t know what a DLT day is you can discover it by clicking HERE.
Our church has entered day 4 of it season of fasting and prayer. God has given us a very concrete direction for prayer. This week we are focusing on:
DAY 1- KNOWING JESUS AND MAKING HIM KNOWN
DAY 2- DOING LIFE TOGETHER
DAY 3- REACHING THE LOST
DAY 4- SENDING THE FOUND
DAY 5- DISCOVERING OUR GIFTS
DAY 6- CHANGING THE WORLD
Here is yesterday’s video post on Reaching the Lost.
What the Lord has shown us is that Reaching the lost in our community is going to be done through Doing Life Together with people who have not yet made a connection with Jesus. That is: breaking bread together, sharing Scripture with, praying with, and mutually meeting needs with folks who have not yet made a decision to trust Jesus Christ as God.
This is Day number 2 of our 2021 21 Days of fasting and prayer. Today’s prayer focus is DLT (Doing Life Together) groups.
Here are some things I know about DLT Groups-
IT MAY BE FOUND IN A TRADITIONAL BIBLE STUDY SETTING.
IT MIGHT BE FOUND IN ON-LINE CONNECTION
IT MIGHT BE FOUND IN SEVERAL ONE TO ONE CONNECTIONS
2. DLT groups are initiated by God and then chosen by man.- The people in your DLT group will show up as you pray for them. They may not be connections you would obviously choose and they may not even be with people you normally associate with. Right now God has directed me to a DLT group that is based around individual meetings and on line connections. One is a friend I have made over the years who is currently living in seclusion because of the pandemic. I check in with him and his wife weekly on line. Another in my DLT group is an elderly lady in our church I take out to do grocery shopping every other week. A third person in DLT group is the treasurer of our church who I meet with once a month for coffee. None of us are meeting in one group ever but we are all connected by the four aspects of Doing Life Together.
3. DLT groups don’t become DLT groups naturally– The DLT lifestyle (breaking bread together, biblical teaching, prayer and mutual provision of needs) needs to be intentionally integrated into relationships that would otherwise simply be acquaintances.
Today began our 21 days of fasting and prayer at Cornerstone Church. Here is a bit about what we will be focusing on for the next 3 weeks.
Pre service video
This is our church service today!
Tonight’s prayer point….Know Jesus and Make Him Known
I love to begin with the quiet of a new day.
I love to rise before the rest of the house does and slowly gather my thoughts in prayer for the first couple of hours of the emerging morning.
I love to watch the sun rise over the back yard, bringing light to the Vicarage once again. It feels like a victory each time I see the sun wink into existence, to know that I have beaten the heating orb to the punch one more time.
Somehow catching those first quiet rays sets me up for the rhythm of the rest of my day. It is as if those gentle morning moments breathe something fresh into me that can carry me through into all the peace, creativity and strength I need for the rest of the day.
The Home Photo Challenge was fun for me last year. Since I do not think much is going to be changing for me in the way of travel this year, I am going to continue the challenge for myself into 2021. This year I am going to add a little twist. I will give a brief description of each photo I take and write a Haiku to go along with it.
IF YOU WANT TO JOIN IN THE FUN.JUST TAKE A PHOTO IN OR AROUND YOUR HOME AND WRITE YOUR OWN BLOG AND POST THE LINK IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW IT.
Have you noticed that the world has gone bonkers?
I guess the world has always been bonkers…well at least since that Adam and Eve with the tree episode.
Every once in a while though the world just chooses to show its true nature more flamboyantly than others. Now is such a time. This has been a season of “Wowsie-Wowsie-Woo-Woo” to beat the groovy off a hippie poet.
I guess I should not be much surprised by what is happening in the world. This is what God has been telling people to prepare for… for well a long time. Maybe part of the problem is we really didn’t believe God or His prophets or His Word.We don’t really want to accept that the truths of the end of the Bible are coming to pass before our eyes.
The Christian believers among us want to keep believing that Jesus is coming back to judge the world, but we want it to be painless. We want it to happen. We even say “Even so Lord Jesus come quickly.” We just don’t want anything to do with the process of His coming. We certainly don’t want to admit that there are aspects of our lives which will experience that process of judgment, because we’ve let bits of the world’s bonkers into ourselves.
Bonkers is going to be with us for a little while longer folks. So we had better figure out what to do with it. Here are some suggestions for dealing with bonkers:
3. Pray about things and leave the results with God.- Stop telling God how to do His job. Give Him the situations that are vexing you, that are above your pay grade and trust Him to deal with them.
4. Stay in your lane- God has given you an area of influence. Stop pretending its bigger than it is and influence things you actually have authority over. Stop trying to influence things outside your realm of influence. You will only make things worse by involving yourself in things you have no business in.
5. Choose the fruit of the Spirit not the works of the flesh-
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. Galatians 5: 19-26
Wow! Yesterday’s article brought forth such good discussion on the subject of rhythm and schedule! Check out the full convo at RHYTHM OVER SCHEDULE.
In developing my thought process on the subject of life rhythm and scheduling life I thought it might be helpful to use an analogy here….
RHYTHM IS TO SCHEDULE AS MUSIC IS TO MATH.
MATH IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF MUSIC BUT MATH BY ITSELF IS NOT MUSIC. CONVERSELY MUSIC WITHOUT MATH IS JUST DISORGANIZED SOUND.
In order for music to be music there must be intentional variation in pitch (speed of vibration) and intentional meter and rhythm which comes by counting out the pace of the notes. But there is something else music possesses which is harder to quantify. That is the spiritual/ emotional connection with the human soul. Music is more than just pitch and rhythm. It is heart. It is connection. It is divine spark.
IN LIKE MANNER SCHEDULING IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF LIFE RHYTHM BUT SCHEDULING BY ITSELF IS NOT LIFE RHYTHM. CONVERSELY LIFE RHYTHM WITHOUT INTENTIONAL SCHEDULING IS JUST A COMFORTABLE WAY OF LIVING DEVOID OF CREATED PURPOSE .
Our life rhythm is the pattern of living that taps into our giftedness from God. So in order to tap into our divine gifts we need to intentionally schedule the pattern of living that draws them out.
What I learned, was that just having a schedule planned out according to my life roles did not necessarily mean I was tapping into the divine giftedness God had planned for me. My mistake in scheduling was that I allowed others to define my life rhythm by placing their expectations upon me. I let other people tell me what my role in the world was. I scheduled my life only according to what other people required of me. I was not strong enough to assert my own rhythm. I was not strong enough to say “no” when the expectations of others led me away from the life rhythm which fed my soul. I was like the tiger above…filled with all kinds of power but not using any of it.
So about three years ago I began to create a schedule which served my life rhythm rather than making my life rhythm serve my schedule. I view my rhythm as a cycle or a circle….like a clock. The rhythm is divided into seven sections: prayer (this is the first section of the cycle and for my giftedness to be released the most important), physical activity, rest, writing, work, relationship, and study (this is the final section of the cycle and for my giftedness to be released I think of it as second in importance).
Just like on a clock you cannot go to the second hour without making it through the first hour. So in my rhythm I cannot go onto physical activity without first praying. On the other hand I cannot jump from work into prayer without first spending at least some time in relationship and study.
Is this the right way to do it? Honestly, I don’t know if there is A RIGHT WAY of scheduling or living according to a life rhythm, but it is the way I have found that works for me in this moment.
SO TELL ME HOW YOU SCHEDULE OR WORK ACCORDING TO LIFE RHYTHM.
Those of you who have followed me for any length of time, know that I have been toying with the writing of a book for several years now.
I actually started the publishing process a few years back and had a contract signed with a publishing company. Then life got in the way and the dream died.
But here’s the thing, I am a big believer in dead things coming back to life!
This year the book came out of its proverbial grave clothes and now it is coming out of the shadows. I finished Pork Chops With the Sentinels Of Azatan just before Christmas!
Yes Ray it is done (Ray is the guy who keeps asking me about it)!!!!
I have contacted my publisher and they have released me from my contract as they are no longer in a position to be able to publish me. This frees me up to take the next steps towards publication of my first novel!
So here I am posting the first steps on this journey to the first completed work by J. Lillie. 2021 is the year folks! Here we go!!!
In my post from a few days ago entitled NEW DIRECTIONS, NEXT STEPS, I used the phrase, “I have shifted from a life schedule to a life rhythm.”
I want to camp there for a few moments and explain what I think is the difference between a schedule and a rhythm
I was taught the importance of writing and keeping a schedule almost twenty years ago. Since that time I have always kept a day planner and I set aside time weekly to create my schedule, to plan my calendar.
This has been an important aspect of becoming effective in my roles as a human being. I will continue to plan a weekly agenda going forward. I need to do that so I don’t miss meetings because I was busy watching television!
In spite of its importance I have learned that rhythm trumps schedule every time. I have learned I can make and keep a schedule and still lose my effectiveness if I do not consider and surrender to my created rhythm…hmmm. I think that’s a term that will need some explaining….I sense another post coming on this subject.
If I do not plan and practice my life rhythm, schedule takes over. Much of our world has fallen victim to this issue. As a result we have become a culture of racing activity junkies tied to calendars that other people have made for us.
Three years ago I was there. I was living by my schedule, made for me by other people, without my life rhythm. I had lost my individuality, my divine spark and sadly much of my usefulness to the community I served. The sad thing was I was so busy, so tired, I didn’t realize it.
But God….
The last three years have been painful as God stripped away all my schedule (all the things I and others previously thought were important). The last year has been my full acceptance of my life rhythm and its practice.
Today I still keep a planner. It still holds all my meetings (though fewer they be and of a far different nature). But now my day planner intentionally displays my life rhythm. I follow that rhythm now as doggedly as I ever followed the schedule. The schedule serves the rhythm now…and that has made all the difference.
Lillie-Put 