Journal Jots – Blog

As the deer pants for streams of water,

so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When can I go and meet with God? 

—Psalms 42:1-2

You know, a few days ago when I was doing my Bible study, the Scripture above really hit me hard. Oh my, to pant, to thirst, to crave God is something my soul has always longed for, but I’ll be honest—it’s also something that eludes me more than I like.

So I started to think—what exactly is it that I DO pant and thirst for, crave so much that I surrender my will and my time to it more than anything else? Well, believe it or not, the first thing that came to mind is that sense of peace and relaxation Keith and I experience at bedtime when he snuggles up close while I read my book. He always encircles me with his arm and throws his leg over my body because the elevation helps to relieve his sore hip (sound familiar? Patrick O’Connor did the same thing with Marcy!). With a long, languid sigh, he closes his eyes and says almost every single night—“Ah … the favorite part of my day, babe.” And I always smile because it’s my favorite part of the day too—that moment in time when all my worries and problems fade away as I lose myself in a good book while the love of my life is so very close, both of us resting and reveling in the peace and safety of God.

Then there are those precious moments with my family—oh, how I crave those!!  Whenever we get together, be it babysitting, dinners out or just a quick visit, it becomes a celebration of sorts where we laugh and pray and share the events of our week. It’s fun to catch up and smile over the antics of my granddaughter, especially when she giggles over crazy JuJu’s sad attempts to sway and dance with my hands or when she reaches for one of my books WITHOUT prompting and without being set up (God’s truth … although I did re-enact for this pic!!). What can I say? My granddaughter has good taste in books … 😉

Then of course, I love to go biking with my hubby, which usually begins with breakfast at Panera and ends with black mango tea from QT. But I’ll tell you what—after biking 12 to 14 miles over mud paths and meandering forest trails in the summer heat, I am panting and thirsting BIG TIME for nothing but a tall glug of water.

And then it hit me. I crave the peace and rest with Keith at the end of the day, but that’s exactly the kind of peace and rest I experience with God when I finally turn a problem or worry over to Him. I long for the love and laughter I enjoy with my family, and yet it is so very much like the love and laughter I experience periodically with God when I am overwhelmed by His goodness or beholden to His mercy. And all that panting and thirsting for a cool drink of clear, clean water after an invigorating but exhausting trek on the trails? Not unlike the quench of the Spirit after a rat race of book deadlines and writer’s block, refreshing me so I can continue on with what He has called me to do.

“So, God,” I say to the patch of blue peeking through the breeze-kissed limbs of the gently swaying trees off my lower deck, “How exactly do I learn to thirst and pant and crave You all the more?”

“Run to me,” the thought came.

Huh? Not run after Him, mind you, which implies you can’t catch Him. Not run because of Him, eye on the finish line of being the Christian He has called you to be. And not even run with Him, sprinting so hard to achieve the things He’s called you to do.

Nope, just run.

TO Him.

“When can I go and meet with God?” the last line of our Scripture asks. Not where, not how, not why … but when.

Every moment of every day.  With every giggle and every tear. Every win and every loss. Every need and every sacrifice. With every thought and every breath.

To include Him with a heart of gratitude in every single thing I do, knitting the fabric of my life with the thread of His Spirit. Acknowledging Him, thanking Him, asking Him, leaning on Him, worshipping Him … and suddenly I find myself running to Him like a little child in need of comfort, peace, joy and rest … panting, thirsting and craving Him like the very breath in my lungs.

Because He is. And He should be. The total source of oxygen in our lives. The wind beneath our wings. The breeze in our face. The air in our lungs.

May we all breathe in, breathe deep and breathe often.

GIVEAWAY!!!

August 3-5, 2012: A chance to win your choice of any of my signed books when you join me at Tina Pinson’s blog for MARKETING 101! Hope to see you there, and here’s the link:

http://tinapinson.blogspot.com/2012/08/marketing-101-julie-lessman.html

Happy weekend, all!

Hugs,

Julie

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith …

—Hebrews 12:1-2

WHOO-HOO … it’s time to go for the gold!! Don’t you just LOVE the Olympics? Two wonderful weeks every four years where athletes and patriots from all over the globe convene to test their mettle, prove their endurance and just go for the gold. Proving to the world and themselves that they and their country are THE BEST! Without question, whether athlete or spectator, the Olympics are an exciting event. And an enlightening one.

Trust me, I’m no athlete, and I failed balance beam in high school to prove it. Yes, I played on a softball team once as a little girl, but I was so bad and so skinny that my brother would joke, “What position do you play, Julie—the foul line?”

But I do know one thing. To succeed you have to focus on the finish line … the ball … or that final lap that separates you and the others from victory. In another words, keep your eye on the prize rather than the journey to get there.

Last week when my husband and I went biking, we went on one of our favorite trails that offers a variety of terrain to meander, from gravel and blacktop to mud trails and narrow, rocky paths. Some of the trails are flat, some are hilly, some wend around lakes while others weave through forests or sunny, cactus-filled fields. The scenery is beautiful and invigorating, but WHOA, BABY, one thing I quickly learned was to keep my eye on the road lest I end up in a ditch. Once while I was crossing a narrow path over a ravine, I got a little skitsy and started slowing down and wobbling—something you definitely don’t want to do on a bike over a yawning 30-foot drop, trust me!! “Don’t look down at the ravine, Julie,” Keith said when he saw me start to veer off, “but keep your eye on where you want to go.”

Where I want to go. Somehow that didn’t make a lot of sense to me at the time because by gum, if there’s a cliff to the right of me, I sure don’t want to take my eye off of it by staring straight ahead! And yet, as I was soon to discover, Keith’s advice is straight out of classic Mountain Bike 101: “Always look where you want to go and never look at what you don’t want to hit! Looking ahead on the trail is critical, especially with cornering and obstacles.”

Looking ahead is critical. Ah, yes … for the athletes in the Olympics and for you and me in the race set before us. And what is that “race” exactly? To meet my deadline on the next book? To tackle that mountain of “to do’s” before vacation without losing one’s cool?? For my daughter to pass the bar exam she took this week? (Which, by the way, a huge THANK YOU to everyone who prayed for her. She won’t find out till mid-September if she passed, but I will let you know if she does.)

Well, yes … and no. Yes, we all have tasks and problems we need to tackle on a daily basis, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned (and relearn on a daily basis!), it’s that in order to achieve victory, you have to keep your eye on the prize—Jesus—and not on the problems, tasks and failings that tend to draw us away.

For instance, because I snuck Marcy and Patrick’s prequel in between two contracted books, I am way behind on my next deadline and tempted to break out in a cold sweat. But the truth is, when I stop focusing on the number of days left to complete the task or all I have to do between now and then and just lift my eyes to Jesus, something remarkable happens. Suddenly my mind is flooded with all the times He pulled my butt from the fire, all the tears He dried when I was sure all was lost, all the victories He gave when I thought I had failed.

Because the bottom line for us as Christians is that He IS the prize. Not that raise or promotion, not those accolades or contest wins, not that happy family or great marriage. Nope, it’s Him … and the peace and joy and confidence that comes from focusing on Him in the race set before us—our lives. Emulating Him every mile, every lap, every stretch of the balance beam in a life where we juggle tears and trials, “to do’s” and “cannots.” Because He not only “can” give us victory in every situation, but the confidence and peace to go along with it while we’re running the race. And then look out! Because as Olympic champion Eric Liddell once said, “when I run I feel His pleasure.”

His Pleasure. Oh, Lord, please—YES!! The one true prize in a race worth running.

May all the victories in your races belong to Him, and may your weekend be a winning one!

Hugs,

Julie

In your relationships with one another,

have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;  

rather, hemade himself nothing by taking

 the very nature of a servant.

—Phillipians 2:5-7

You probably don’t know this about me, but I’m a booth freak. And worse yet, a booth freak with a temper, compounded by a booth freak with a temper whose KEY trigger in life is discourtesy.

Not a good combination for a peaceful family dinner out.

I cannot count how many times I have butted heads with hostesses, waitresses, maitre d’s, you name it, due to snotty attitudes, condescending looks or just downright rudeness on the part of the service industry. Let me repeat that—I said “service” industry. What can I say—it’s my #1 trigger in life, especially in a restaurant. And don’t even get me started if a booth is involved.

Case in point:  Once on vacation, we went to a lovely restaurant in Florida on New Year’s Eve right as they opened the doors at 5:00 PM. We were not only the first people to arrive, but the ONLY people in the restaurant for the next 20 minutes. The hostess, all of sixteen years of age, it appeared, never broke a smile, but simply nodded and pulled the appropriate number of menus from her rack. Shoulders squared, she then proceeded to walk to the very middle of this very spacious room with booths on two walls and tables and chairs in the middle, to seat us at the very middle table.

I know it’s crazy, but I have this pet peeve in a restaurant that I do not like anybody walking behind me. Blame it on the fact I was #12 out of 13 kids and probably got thumped on the back on a regular basis at the dinner table by siblings walking by, or maybe I’m overly skittish because my sisters would lie in wait at the top of the stairs to jump out and scare me behind my back all the time. Whatever the reason, I just flat-out get a chill at the notion of people scooting or walking behind me while I’m eating. Which probably helps explain my obsession with booths because usually booths butt up against each other so your back is not exposed.

So anyway, this child hostess waves her hand at this very lovely table in the middle of the room and already I can see the fear on my family’s faces as my eyes scan the twenty-something (God’s truth!) empty booths with windows overlooking the parking lot.  “Excuse me,” I say in my kindest tone with my most humble smile, “but would it be okay if we sat at a booth instead?” I ask, waving my hand at the sumptuous array of paisley stuffed booths. “I’m sorry,” the reply came in a cool tone, “but those are reserved.” I blinked. “Reserved?” I say, wondering if anybody on the planet other than me EVER made a reservation that specifically requested a booth, much less twenty of them on a given night in an empty restaurant. “But there’s nobody there now,” I say sweetly, “and it’s only 5:05 PM, so are you sure we can’t be seated there? I have this thing about booths, you see.”

No, apparently she did not because she continued to argue with me and I with her until my family were hiding under the linen-clad table. Well, we ate at that very table that night and yes, you guessed it—my meal was ruined. But … not because of the table, the food or the service. Nope. It was because I’d lost my temper, ruined my family’s dinner and mine and acted less like a Christian than the rude hostess with the twenty earrings in each ear. Because you see, at least I knew I was supposed to serve others … this poor thing apparently didn’t.

Rather, He made Himself nothing by taking

 the very nature of a servant.

Oh, the tales I could tell—of tussles in Wal-Marts, of roadside frays and shouting matches in dining establishments, undeniable proof that I am not the servant of God I like to think I am. Because in order to serve Him, I am called to serve others—every minute of every day, whether in a good mood or bad, in a just situation or unjust … in a booth or at a table.

So today, I would like to offer my deepest apologies to every single waitress, hostess, restaurant manager, Wal-mart greeter and checker on the planet—forgive me for the angst I caused you. Forgive me for not being the Christian God has called me to be. Forgive me for not following the example of Jesus in being the customer, the consumer, the patron that He wants me to be.

Because the truth is the customer is not always right, at least not if he or she serves a God who laid down His life to serve others.

I wish you and yours a wonderful weekend … and let’s make it even better by serving someone today with our hearts as well as our hands.

Hugs,

Julie