Tanja's Digging Deeper

August 1, 2011

"Morning & Evening"

Charles Spurgeon pg. 431

"Thou crownest the year with thy goodness"Psalm 65:11 

God blesses us richly every hour of every day. When we sleep and when we wake, His mercy waits upon us. The sun may leave us  a legacy of darkness, but God never ceases to shine upon His children withbeams of love. Like a river, His lovingkindness always flows with a fullness that is as inexhoustible as His own nature. Like the atmosphere which surrounds the earth and supports the life of man, the benevolence ofGod surrounds all His creatures. Rivers are swollen at certain seasons by the rain, and the atmosphere itself is sometimes filled with more fresh, more bracing, or more balmy influences than usual. It is the same with the mercy of God. It has its golden hours and its days of overflowing joy, whenthe Lord magnifies His grace before the sons of men. The psalmist tells us that the harvest is the crownig of the year. Surely these crowning mercies call for crowning thanksgiving! Let us offer thanks by the inward emotions of gratitude. Let our hearts be wramed, and let our spirits remember and meditate upon goodness of the Lord. Let us glorify God by yielding our gifts to Him.

This caused me to generate my list today!

31) Thinking of Autumn, I thank you ahead of time for the beauty stored in the leaves hanging on the trees.

32) Pumpkins

33) Apple pie

34) Cool nights, AHHHH

35) Hot apple cider

36) The fact that God waits for me

37) God shines on us. I feel it even now.

38) Thank you for Charles Spurgeon

40) Model airplanes (Ed just brougt one home to build with Nathan)

July 29, 2011  (I have been thinking and pondering today!!)

Joy!    How to live it.  That definately has been my struggle. I am not always joyfull and being a MOM has squeezed me and stressed me that I do freak out more than usual and I get myself into this  guilt cycle over and over. Ann's book has made me feel less isolated and less alone in this struggle and has given me tools to snap myself out of that cycle much quicker. Love it! It is what I needed. I have been telling myself all I NEED is more time to myself and more time to calm myself . BUT even that is not it!! That has been my major AH, HA! about this book. It's not the time. Here is what Ann has said about it:

“And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them …” (Luke 22:19 NIV).

In the original language, “he gave thanks” reads “eucharisteo.”

The root word of eucharisteo is charis, meaning “grace.” Jesus took the bread and saw it as grace and gave thanks. He took the bread and knew it to be gift and gave thanks. But there is more, and I read it. Eucharisteo, thanksgiving, envelopes the Greek word for grace, charis. But it also holds its derivative, the Greek word chara, meaning “joy.”Joy. Ah … yes. I might be needing me some of that. That might be what the quest for more is all about—that which Augustine claimed, “Without exception … all try their hardest to reach the same goal, that is, joy.” I breathe deep, like a sojourner finally coming home. That has always been the goal of the fullest life—joy. And my life knew exactly how elusive that slippery three-letter word, joy, can be. I think of it then again, that night of nightmares, the flailing, frantic, moon-eyed lunge for more. More what? And this was it; I could tell how my whole being responded to that one word. I longed for more life, for more holy joy.

Voskamp, Ann (2010-12-01). One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are (p. 32). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.


So how to get more of it???

So then as long as thanks is possible … I think this through. As long as thanks is possible, then joy is always possible. Joy is always possible. Whenever, meaning—now; wherever, meaning—here. The holy grail of joy is not in some exotic location or some emotional mountain peak experience. The joy wonder could be here! Here, in the messy, piercing ache of now, joy might be—unbelievably—possible! The only place we need see before we die is this place of seeing God, here and now.

Voskamp, Ann (2010-12-01). One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are (p. 33). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

I read, “The greatest thing is to give thanks for everything. He who has learned this knows what it means to live…. He has penetrated the whole mystery of life: giving thanks for everything.”3

Voskamp, Ann (2010-12-01). One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are (pp. 33-34). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

So it's not more time. It's an  attitude of noticing God in everything and the act of writing it down is and an exercise of FAITH!!! We are actively believing God when we write these things down that we are seeing in our everyday life. God wants us to BELIEVE HIM! AND Receive Him daily and hourly like breathing in air. Taking in and breathing out. Taking in is the noticing and breathing out the writing down.

*Beth Moore has done a wonderful study called "Believeing God" and these two books could really go together. Beth calls these times of thanks GOD STOPS.  STOP stands for Savoring the Observeable Presence. It is powerful stuff.

July 28,2011

Started over and these bits I highlighted the first time around:

It’s the life in between, the days of walking lifeless, the years calloused and simply going through the hollow motions, the self-protecting by self-distracting, the body never waking, that’s lost all capacity to fully feel—this is the life in between that makes us the wild walking dead.

Voskamp, Ann (2010). One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are (p. 27). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

THIS is the question that we ALL don't always dare to ask. But ANN did:

Yes, this premature dying to self, birthing into the cross-life, the grace cocoon before emerging into the life unending. Without this Jesus, no, no one can be ready. But, someone, please give me—who is born again but still so much in need of being born anew—give me the details of how to live in the waiting cocoon before the forever begins?

Voskamp, Ann (2010). One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are (p. 29). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

July 22, 2011
If it's Ok, I'd like to post parts of the book that make me stop and think a bit..... pg. 212

Jesus says there is no other way to take up the faith but complete union: “I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you” (John 14:20). I am stilled. I think on being in Christ and Him being in me and He is wind whisperer and I am leaf and He stirs and I tremble: “Remain in me, and I will remain in you” (John 15:4). He’s calling me to graft on, become one with the True Vine, the vine the biblical symbol of joy, festivity … fullness. He’s calling to come and celebrate being made one, and in Him, by Him, to bear the fruit of the full life round.

Voskamp, Ann (2010). One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are (p. 212). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

July 24, 2011

Another quote:
In the orchard, the day’s first wind blows a thousand apple blossoms from the trees. They shower earth’s dark breast. I watch them fly. A snow of endless beauty. And I feel His caress.(afterward)

Voskamp, Ann (2010). One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are . Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

I don't even have to see what Ann saw that morning. Just the thought of it as I read the end of her book, brings the same blessing this morning. A blessing that sprouts out of her book even so she wrote it months ago. Oh! I just saw the apple blossoms on your BLOG! I understand now!