Cheryl Nifong

I spend time nearly everyday singing or writing worship songs to God, it is my absolute favorite thing to do.  But did you know that God sings over you?  This is one of my favorite verses. Zephaniah 3:17

¹⁷ For the Lord your God is living among you.
He is a mighty savior.
He will take delight in you with gladness.
With his love, he will calm all your fears.^[a]
He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”

This verse tells me that God is in my midst, right in the middle of whatever I am going through. It also tells me that he is a mighty savior, a victorious warrior who goes to battle on my behalf.  Why? Because he loves you and me so much.  In the NAS version it says that he exults over you.  That means to revel, to jump for joy, to show exceeding joy over YOU!  His love will calm your fears when we start to worry.  And in those quiet moments in the stillness of the night I can hear him singing a love song over me.  When I need to hear it most.  One night in particular, he sang these words over me.   One day I will finish this song, but I wanted to share the chorus lyrics.

You gotta hold on, its gonna be okay
I know the road seems dark, but I’ll light your way
Looking down from heaven, I’m watching over you
You can’t give up now because better days are coming soon.
You gotta hold on, you’re never alone
My arms are open wide, I’ll never let go
I’ll wipe your tears in the night and joy will come at the dawn
Just take my hand and hold on.

How does God speak to you?  Do you hear him singing over you?

Cheryl

I thought about this at length last night.  Its not sadness, or worry, or fear of failure, or (you fill in the blank)…

I think the worst feeling ever…

is to feel insignifant

Think about it.  You struggle to make sense out of your life. (I’m talking to believers here too!)  Why are you here, what is your purpose.  And life somehow doesn’t turn out the way you plan.  God doesn’t pull you through like you think He should.

And you wake up one day and think What I do doesn’t even matter.  I try so hard but my effort goes unnoticed.  I think I have friends, but when I need them I am forgotten.  You feel like the Israelites walking in the desert wondering where is this promised land is that you’ve been waiting for.  Or like Job, an outcast, abandoned, forgotten. Wondering where God is in all of this suffering.

And during our struggles God seems silent, distant.  Its in these moments that we begin to hear the lies.  The lies from the enemy that we don’t matter. That we are nothing.  Its in this moment we often give up, right when God is about to do something amazing.

But you are never forgotten by God.  Although you can’t see what He’s up to, He loves you beyond what you could ever comprehend.  You may think you are nothing, but To Him you are everything.

When God formed the world he spoke it into being.  It says in psalms that creation speaks to the glory of God. And in ALL of creation you are God’s most prized possession. His grand masterpiece.  Did you ever think that you speak to the glory of God? Everyday in how you live and how you love. When you see how incredibly significant you are to God, it changes everything.

Do you struggle with this?

Cheryl

Jack of all trades – that’s me.   I dabble in everything.…

computers, music, instruments, singing, taewondo, bible study, blogging, twitter, etc..

this is on top of being a wife, a mom, a pretend chef, and inept housekeeper.

All of these things are good… but doing so many things can be …. exhausting.

About a year ago I thought it would be cool to learn electric guitar. I had already taught myself how to play acoustic.  So I bought an electric and started playing. I even played in the band at church a few times and it was awesome.  But then I found myself each week rotating from piano, keyboards, acoustic, electric.  I was generally good at all of them.  But it was too much to practice all of them.  I had to choose.

So for now I’m done with electric guitar.  Why?

Because I don’t want to be just good at many things, I want to be great at something.

You must let go of some good things in order to be great at that one thing.

So what’s that ONE thing that just drives you.  That you are passionate about.  What good things are you going to give up in order to be great at that ONE thing?

Cheryl

A recent sermon quoted this: When life throws you lemons chuck em out and demand chocolate.

There was a time life threw me lemons and I turned sour.  I was angry at God and myself and everyone around me.  There was no contentment to be found.  I didn’t even want to turn my lemons into lemonade. There was nothing sweet about my circumstance and I didn’t want anything except my circumstance to change.

What I realized is that I didn’t fully understand the follow verse.

Take a look at this. Philippians 4:11. ¹¹Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be ^(A)content in whatever circumstances I am.  (NAS)

Notice the emphasis on a very little word in.  That in our circumstances we are to be content.  Look what it didn’t say.  It didn’t say be content with your circumstances.  Did you see that subtle difference? That is huge.

Despite what I thought, God didn’t want me to be miserable.  He wanted me to understand this truth – I might not have any control over how I got into this circumstance, but I can control how I respond.  Being content, happy, joyful was a choice.  My choice.  Regardless of my circumstance.  And my contentment wasn’t in people, places or things.  Contentment is found in Christ alone.  And no one can make this choice for you.

And when I finally got to that point, not only did my attitude change, so did my circumstance.

Do you struggle with contentment?

Cheryl

Do you ever ask this question? I have a few times over the last year.  I read my bible, prayed, but there was no movement. I wasn’t going backwards, but also not going forward.  I wasn’t experiencing this amazing Christian life that I hear other people are.  I was just standing still wondering when God was going to do something to change our situation at the time.  And recently it occurred to me that maybe I was asking the wrong question..

Maybe the question should be “How am I hindering God from doing anything in my life?”.  And then it began to make sense.  I think we put HUGE limits on God.  We think He can’t do what He says He will.  And through human effort we strive.  And we fail.  Three different times this week I ran across passages that read, I AM.  He was here before the earth was formed and spoke it into existence.  He breathed life itself into us, conquered death itself, but we don’t think He can accomplish a good work through us.    I was reading Isaiah 55 this week and He says, my ways are higher than your ways.  My thoughts are higher than yours.

Later in the passage He says that his Word will not come back to Him empty. That the very word from his mouth will do exactly what is was set out to do. The problem is we stand in the way.  Whether its pride, or shame, guilt, fear of failure.  We stand in the way of all God has for us.  The answer is simple. It’s surrender. We don’t like this word in our culture today.  It’s considered a sign of weakness.  But the paradox is that in surrender to Christ there is power beyond your wildest dreams.

Surrender those things at the foot of the cross and allow God’s power to heal us and then enpower us.

Then amazing things will happen.

What is standing in the way of you experiencing amazing things from God?

This is a rough draft but I feel compelled to share this song with you. Please feel free to comment and pass it on to anyone who needs to hear it.

Psalm 23

I am an IT contractor right now.   Many days I am burdened by the responsibility of this job.  Its very demanding. It literally sucks the life out of me if I am not careful.

I think to myself.  I left my comfy job to trust God to do something amazing in my life and he gives me THIS!  No, I have just lost my perspective.

And I have to refocus, regroup.  And I must let God intervene into my thoughts.  And then yesterday it struck me.

I am on a TEMPORARY assignment. TEMPORARY….

I had started to grow weary of waiting on God.  He’s up to something.  He is preparing me for what’s ahead.  Giving me the necessary skills to complete my next assignment. But I’m to caught up in my circumstances to notice God moving.

¹⁷For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.  2 Corinth 4:17-18

My troubles are not light right now but they are momentary.  But how we react to it speaks volumes about our character.  Do you trust God when everything falls apart?  Do you patiently wait on him?  Do you trust that this journey that you are on will somehow bring glory to the kingdom of God?  Do you relinquish  control so that God can accomplish HIS GOOD work through you?

Our life is a temporary assignment.  This is not our home but we sure get attached to things that don’t even matter.  Fix your eyes on what is unseen today.  Allow God to use you in your circumstance to change a life.

I’ve heard it said that you are either headed into a storm, your already in it or you are coming out of it.  But when we are directly in it is hard to see the light at the end of that tunnel.  That the storm will eventually cease.  I thought about a poem I wrote a long time ago that I remembered as a storm rages around me now.

I sit along the peer, my feet dangling in the bay
And I gaze toward the sky at the coming of the day
Everything is dark and I look toward the skies
A storm is approaching so today the sun may never rise.
Then motion began around me, the still water turned to waves
The turbulent winds came forth, screaming with such rage
Those disturbing winds stirred the water as I thought about my life
Those waves tossing in the water represented all my strife
I thought how hard life can be sometimes with the battles that I fight
And I looked up for a moment and caught a glimpse of shining light
The sun rose about the horizon, by God’s mighty palm
The water became tranquil, the winds became calm
The soft ripples in the water filled my life with peace
The raging storms of life, just began to cease.

I don’t know what storm is around you now, but I know that just as the sun rises and the sun sets that the storm will cease.  And there is life on the other side of that storm.  That what has been torn down will be rebuilt.  What is broken will be mended.

Jesus, as the storm rages around me take away my doubt and strengthen my faith. Let me not be overwhelmed but overjoyed by your awesome presence.  May I not rely on myself to fix it but to rely only on you.  To rely on you for comfort, for refuge, for rescue.

Today I declared a lazy day. Usually Saturdays are so hectic.

Housework, errands, grocery shopping, dishes, laundry…. the list is endless.  The life of this full time working mom never really seems to slow down.  And its easy to lose sight of all the things that really matter.

But today was different.

Today I was not a housekeeper, I was not a cook, I was not a runner of errands, I was not the firewall administrator for an entire city.

Today I was a mom.  Today I was a wife.  Today I was a friend.

And it was a great day:)

My 8 year old is getting really irritated lately as we have a 2 year old in the house.  She repeats everything her sister says and tries to do everything her sister does. I tell her this is normal but still drives her crazy.

And I get really irritated when my 8 year old gets angry, stubborn, obstinate, loud-mouthed and a little rebellious.  Hmmmm. I wonder where she gets that from?  Whether we like it or not, we as parents are models for our children.  And they will imitate what they see. And i realize there are things in my life that are just not worth imitating.

I have been reading Colossians 3 this week and realize that I have some work to do.

¹²Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  Colossians 3:12-13