"God doesn't look right on paper..."

Do you ever mentally do a pros and cons list?  It doesn't matter if it's a rock-your-world type of decision or just a simple one, your thoughts start a list that helps you arrive to the most logical conclusion based on positives and negatives outcomes.  The positives and negatives always end up being something that will help or hurt you in some way.

Logic can be such a good thing to have.  Like when your child is holding herself in the middle of the supermarket saying she has to go to the toilet.  Logic would say, put the spinach down now and run to the other side of the store as fast as the trolley will go and take her to the toilet OR she'll wet her pants and I don't have clothes to change her into, I don't want to hunt down an employee and ruin their day by having them clean up my child's urine in the veggie aisle and I don't want soiled pants in with my other dirty clothes that are waiting to be washed, b/c although they needed to be cleaned yesterday, I don't want pee-pee pants intermingling with the other dirty clothes to make them even more dirty b/c I am not ready to put on another load.  Okay, thats it, everyone run to the bathroom!  Whew!  Now that's thinking things through logically and it's just in a matter of seconds that all the thoughts are categorized and whiz through our minds.

But sometimes, we get so logical about everything that we begin to live life with logic and throw faith out the window.  I found myself in that boat, recently.  I have always thought myself a logical person.  And in life's many daily choices, logic can be useful, but as I recall, it's faith that pleases God and faith trumps logic every time.  Now, I'm not talking about stupidity.  You know the old example of stepping in front of an oncoming semi saying, "I have faith that I won't be hurt."  Faith won't help you on that one.  But it will be your ticket into the next.  ;)  I'm talking about when you have a choice to make and you aren't sure which way to go.  One way seems logical and on your logic list you have words like:  more money, safe, comfortable, secure, settled, the norm, routine, it's worked fine up until now so why change?  The part of you that deals with the same trust issue will usually win out on your logic list and you'll stick to what's safe so you can stay in your warm, cozy cocoon.  But sometimes our logic - which is basically our reasoning thoughts - may, in our minds, seem the best way, the way with more benefits; but in reality takes us out of God's design for our lives.  We may miss out on so much of the great stuff because we didn't want to step out in faith.  Fear being a factor that stopped us.  Which deals with lack of trust. But, moving on...

After the resurrection, Jesus showed up in the room where the disciples were.  A couple of followers were telling the 11 about their talk with someone on the road who turned out to be Jesus.  So here they are, getting news that Jesus is alive.  How crazy that must have been for them!  And when they were listening, suddenly, Jesus was there and it says they were so afraid , terrified even, that they thought they had seen a ghost.  And it goes on to say, 38 And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled ? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?  That word, "thoughts" is the Greek word "dialogismov".  Two words that come to mind when I see that are dialogue, and logic.  Our minds are always on dialogue.  Not a monologue - one way conversation, but a dialogue with our spirits.  Our spirits are yearning for the supernatural, are desperate to break out of the natural, normal, day to day stuff.  Our spirits thrive on God's rhema words to us and His promises to us.  But our thoughts default to logic. And so the battle ensues.  Jesus knew their thoughts.  He "heard" the thoughts of their minds.  What could their thoughts have been saying?  "No way.  Impossible.  I saw him die.  I saw it all with my own two eyes.  I saw him carry the cross and then be nailed to it.  He can't be alive.  It must be some crazy mistake.  Or a hoax.  I watched the sword thrust into his side and I saw him taken away to be buried.  Anyway, there were soldier guarding his tomb.  Those are Roman soldiers.  They are no joke!  They wouldn't let someone in or out of that tomb!  They are probably still there guarding it.  Well, he did say it a few times...he talked about dying and rising up but that never really made sense to me.  And how could it have happened anyway?  I mean, I saw him raise the dead, but how can a dead man raise himself?!  Impossible."  

The definition of the transliterated word "Dialogismos" is:  the thinking of a man deliberating with himself, a thought, inward reasoning, a deliberating, questioning about what is true, hesitation, doubting, disputing, arguing.  Our thoughts are on autopilot to logic land - to inward reasoning.  We deliberate and question what is true.  We hesitate and doubt.  But Jesus was there, standing right in front of them.  It defied logic.  It shut the door on sense.  But it was the truth.  God's truth can surpass logic.  When you look at your logic list with God as the debating factor, it's easy to see that God doesn't always look right on paper.  My husband and I had a decision to make and as we were coming up with our answer, all our good logic came out first.  And the answer to our issue all hinged on one thing - the one thing that we constantly have to surrender and trust God with.  And suddenly I saw it.  Following God would get us much further then following the list.  I saw that somewhere along the road, we had begun to look at the reasoning of man and taken God out of the equation.  My logic list came up against the truth and suddenly I got the good smack of faith and realized that my logic could not dictate the right way for us.  I couldn't rely on an organized, sense-filled list to make sure I made the right choices.  My list can only see possibilities, His promises see sureties.  My list can't see into tomorrow, my God knows all things to come.  Obedience to Him is the only thing that will get us to God's design for our lives - even if it doesn't make sense in some of the practical areas of life.  Jesus standing there didn't make sense to the disciples.  It went against everything that made sense.  He knew their thoughts, he heard their logic, but the truth of him being alive, standing there in that room at arm's length shot logic out of the water.  An invisible God doesn't make sense to everyone.  But the Truth outweighs what makes sense to man.

     What are your thoughts saying?  What kind of dialogue are you having with your spirit?  Get God's truth on the matter before you go for the pencil to start writing out the pros and cons...and all of a sudden you'll find you don't need a list anymore, you just need Him.  

Un-Sausage and Potato Soup

Another reason to love winter:  Soup!  I am a big soup gal.  I don't have many soup recipes that I feel I have mastered, but this is the one that I really KNOW how to do and it comes out delicioso!  

Here's what you'll need:

4 cups Chicken Broth (preferably homemade)

2 cups milk

2 tbs butter or 2 tbs beef grease

2 tbs wheat flour

coconut oil

Ground beef - 1/2 pound (preferably grass-fed)

2 large potatoes or 3 medium-sized

1/2 onion

1 head broccoli

dried sage to taste

dried dill (optional) to taste

garlic salt to taste

salt and pepper to taste

As with all recipes, I like to make mine fit our tastes...season until you find it just right, add more or less potato,beef or broccoli...totally up to you.  If you like more broth just do more of the milk mixture.

I don't know all the cooking terms...so bear with me.  Cut up potatoes (cut it in cubes as big or small as you like - just remember the smaller they are the faster they cook and they may get mushy - but again, your preference).  Put them in soup pot with chicken broth and add salt and cook on medium.  While it is cooking,  dice onion (use the food processor if you have one) and saute on medium-low heat for at least 5 minutes.  Then brown your beef and season with garlic salt, sage and pepper.  I like to go heavy on the sage (it gives it a sausage flavor).  If you don't get much fat from the beef, add butter and flour and mix in then add milk and bring to a soft boil, stirring often.  Cut up the broccoli into florets and I don't like to waste the stalks so I cut them up in tiny bits for the extra nutrition and add it to the chicken broth/potato pot.  I like the broccoli to stay al dente so I don't let it stay in long before adding the milk mixture.  Add dried dill or keep it as is.  But taste it and see if you think it needs more sage. Enjoy!

Fat Vultures

We recently started watching Man vs. Wild with the kids...what a fascinating show!  If you've never heard of it, it's about a guy that can be dropped in any environment (Amazon, Antarctic, Rocky Mountains) and can survive in the environments against wild animals, hunger, and life threatening situations.  Antony loves it because the guy is from England...anyone that cool and that happens to be British is a winner in Antony's book!  He's my British Bulldog.  :)  Anyway, in one of the episodes, a zebra had been killed and Bear (the name of the adventurer) was so hungry he was going to go and see if he could make a meal of it... but the vultures had gotten to it first.  You could see them in the background trying to walk up the hills.  He explained that they had eaten of the carcass, the dead,  until they were so full, that they could no longer fly.  When I heard that, it hit me.  I can feast off the dead things in my life:  old hurts, disappointments, regrets, broken dreams, habits, paradigms and failures and they will fill me up enough so that I'll never fly.  The dead things will fill me enough to stop me from reaching my dreams.  I can be filled with life that will lead me to my dreams or I can choose to be filled with dead things that will keep me on the ground, struggling to even just make it up the small hills in life.  Then I began to think about how that relates to my thought life.  During Jesus' ministry, there were times where the Bible says that Jesus answered their thoughts.  Their thoughts were the truest part of what they believed.  They could've acted on the outside as though they believed, they could've said the right things, but it's the heart, the thoughts and intents that God sees and that determines what we truly believe.  As a man thinks he is, that's what he is. (my paraphrase of Proverbs  23:7).

 Just think, it's not the disappointment or regret or hurt or whatever that stops us.  It has already occurred.  It lasted for a specific time.  But it's our thoughts regarding the negative situation that we relive and "eat" from.  Scientfically, it's shown that our thoughts can even cause our physical bodies to react negatively - increase in blood pressure, heart rate, sweating, even disease - all just by thinking something!  It's our thoughts that we have to take captive.  (2 Cor.10:5a We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ).  My thoughts are what goes against the knowledge of who God is.  What He stands for.  If what I think about goes against anything that would come out of God, then those are the thoughts that I must take captive and replace them with the knowledge of who God says He is.  The other day Luke came and told me that Jonathon had done something naughty.  But I knew it was completely out of character for Jonathon to do such a thing that I could NOT even believe Luke.  I briefly entertained the possibility that maybe Jonathon did the wrong action but I quickly disregarded it because I have knowledge of who he is.  I know him and from my knowledge of him, my thoughts dictated only the truth of the situation.  Past failures are speaking through our thought life.  But they are lies when they try to dictate who I am today and go completely against who God says I am now.  If I know Him, if I know what He says, and what He stands for, then I will have no problem differentiating between His truth and the thoughts that say otherwise and try to lift themselves up higher than that truth.

I have called myself unorganized.  I have allowed failures in housework, financial and parental decisions that were a result of a lack of organization keep me unorganized by my believing that I am so.  But God says I am complete in Christ.  That means that I have what I need in me to have a life of order - not chaos.  God did things in order when He created the world...He didn't create man without  first creating all the things man needed to survive.  The King of Order has His Spirit living in me.  So I must reprogram my thoughts with the truth of who I am - the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus!  I am just now beginning to really understand what that means.

So, forget the dead stuff...I've got to fly!

The Extraction

Soft vs weak.  I was weak.  It's easy to get to a place where the line gets blurry. Being soft is important - when I say soft, I mean living out love in speech, conduct, etc.  I endeavor to be soft and so often miss that mark, but  remind myself that I am a work in progress.  Then there's plain old weak.  Weak moments tend to creep up on you.  You can be going strong all day long and then the one weak moment where you make a choice out of the weakness and then, BOOM...no bueno.  But I think about Paul and that where he says in 1 Corinithians about him become strong in his weakness b/c of God saying: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  The Message paraphrase says, "My grace is enough; it's all you need.  My strength comes into its own in your weakness."   I like that.  It's all I need.  His grace is all I need.  His strength shows up in my weakness.  Showing weakness used to seem too "un-spiritual".  I wouldn't allow myself to show others and really just deceived myself  by not acknowledging its existence.  Pride - again, showing up in my life.  Now I am working on facing the weakness by first admitting it's there and then submitting it over and accepting His grace and strength so that I can gain a victory over it.

My moment of weakness this week:  not wanting to face the challenge of a possible disobedience moment (and therefore the need to follow through with discipline) so I just left it alone, watched my 4 year old go play on a zipline and wound up with an unexpected run to the dentist for a tooth extraction.

Well, I was definitely leaning on His grace and strength that afternoon!  And the argument in my mind that plagued me afterwards..."I should've _____"...but as I prayed I told myself to let it go and I literally had to fight to keep it out of my thoughts.  There'll always be something that we should've done but it does nothing for us to constantly rehearse our mistakes.  We must trust Him at each moment - not looking to what I could've done or should've done but knowing that He knows all and that in the end facing my weaknesses leads to me gaining His strength!  How can I lose?

I have to admit, when it was all said and done, one thing I kept thinking was about how he would look in family pictures for quite awhile...*sigh...I am going to have to get over that.  ;)  Maybe a little pride creeping through on that one, too...

Oh, well...Grace and Strength!

Eggplant Parmesan Remix

I have developed a taste for Eggplant but don't want to take the time to make it and bake it...I don't want to wait, I guess.  So the other day I did my own easy and quick version of the yummy meal...here it is:

1 eggplant, peeled and cut into cubes
2 Roma Tomato, seeded
onion, chopped
olive oil/coconut oil/butter
italian seasoning, garlic salt and pepper
fresh parsley, chopped (optional)
freshly grated parmesan or romano cheese

Saute onion (as much or as little as you like) in a mix of coconut oil and butter (or olive oil) on medium heat until soft.  Add the roma tomatos and cook for another minute.  Raise heat to medium high and add in cubed eggplant and sprinkle with garlic salt, italian seasoning and just a little pepper.  Add more oil as needed if things start to get dry and if you don't want to add more oil, just add a little water.  Stir while cooking.  I like it to be a bit al dente but you can cook it has the consistency you like.  Put your mixture into your serving bowl and sprinkle with fresh chopped parsley and as much freshly grated parmesan or romano cheese...yum!

Yummy Squash Soup and Simple Greek Style Salad

I made an amazingly simple and delicious soup last night...thanks mom for your idea!

I had a huge butternut and acorn squash so I only used half of each. So if you have small ones then just use the whole thing. 

Using a sharp knife, cut squashes in chunks and scoop out any seeds (and use a spoon to get all the stringy bits out) and steam until soft.  While still hot, scoop out the meat of the squash and place into your mixer (I wear gloves when I have them but last night I just held each chunk with a clean dish cloth while scooping the insides out.)  Add 3-4 Tbs  of butter (unpasteurized is ideal) and then add a llittle of the hot water used for steaming (about 1/4 cup) and then add 1/2 cup of milk.  Mix and then slowly add more milk until you reach the desired consistency. Add garlic salt (or salt and freshly fround garlic) to taste and pepper to taste.  Voila!  All done..super easy and super tasty!  Perfect for the chilly nights!

While my squash was steaming, I peeled 2 cucumber and seeded it then cut them into thin 1 inch chunks.  I cut up 2 roma tomatoes (you can use more...I only had 4 and wanted to save some for today), one avocado (again, feel free to add more - my other ones weren't ripened so I only used one), onion (optional as cut or as dried onion flakes - I opted for dried since the kids aren't fully onion-people yet), and feta (the chunk is cheaper and you have to crumble it - so it's a bit more messy, but no biggie).  I added kalamata olives (mine had seeds I took them out and cut the olives in slices).  Sprinkle juice from one half lemon (of course, if you have opted to increase the amounts of veggies, you should probably juice a whole lemon) and then sprinkle garlic salt (I use that a lot!), some pepper, and olive oil.  Stir until coated.  Oh, my!  Amazing!  I could've eaten the whole bowl!

It was a delicious meal...my hubby is a meat guy so I did make a huge meat patty (ideal is grass-fed beef) and I seasoned with, you guessed it, garlic salt, sage and pepper.

Hope you try it, it's so yummy and best of all - easy!

Chocolate and Peppermint Shakes

There's something about winter that makes me want minty things...and even though we aren't technically in winter, the minty excitement has begun.  Last night the kids and I made Thin Mints.  Oh, what fond memories I have of those small round chocolate cookies bursting with minty-wonderfulness.  Those were my number one choice when those little Girl Scouts made their way around to our home.  Well, I happened to find a recipe for them - completely unmeditated, I assure you - so it must've been fate that I came across it.  They turned out abosolutely delicious!  Tonight, the kids are sipping on our own homemade Chocolate and Peppermint Shake...I had a sip and it was mintastic!  ;)  Super easy, too! 
Here's the minty how to:

P.S.  The organic sugar that I mentioned, that is NOT the good kind (even though it says organic - they can do a lot of stuff to foods and still put the organic label on them) is the Florida Crystals along with anything that says RAW, Turbinado, whatever...one of the kinds that would be best to use is Rapadura.  (The info I got on sweeteners - which to use and which to avoid - comes form Sally Fallon's book and you can find it at :http://www.amazon.com/Nourishing-Traditions-Challenges-Politically-Dictocrats/dp/0967089735/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1  or if you want to look through it without purchasing, you can find it at the library).