Yahweh

Yahweh – A friend of mine had a life changing experience on an Iowa highway a year and a half ago. While listening to a favorite Chris Tomlin song “Yahweh”, she was involved in a head-on collision. The accident left her with a “Y” shaped scar on her leg. [Sidenote: I love how she titled the blog entry "The 'Y' Scar" - how many times don't we ask "Why?" in regards to our 'scars'?]  You can read more about her scar here.  Since the accident she sees the world differently.  Yahweh saved her life, and she now sees the letter “Y” in many different places. Her God story has influenced me and I, too, look for “Y”’s. 

My oldest son, Ryan, is in Alaska this summer, serving as a volunteer at Victory Ministries of Alaska. He spends each day capturing the experiences and memories in pictures and video for the camp. During his free time, he does a lot of hiking and is taking some beautiful pictures! This morning, as I was looking at new pictures that Ryan posted on his Facebook page,  I began to see a “Y” in many of the pictures. The mountains seemed to bow down in worship, singing their praises to God, revealing God’s glory. A few words kept going through my mind as I scanned through the pictures of all that God has created for us to enjoy! “ From the beginning of time…. Yahweh, YOU reign forever, age to age You are still the same. Beautiful! Glory and praise to YOU, oh God!”

Psalm 72:19 – “Praise be to his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and Amen.”

Lamentations 5:19 - “You, O LORD, reign forever; your throne endures from generation to generation.”

A song written by Hillsong entitled “Yahweh” came to my mind and as I looked at Ryan’s pictures this morning I listened to that song. I found myself breathless - in awe at the beauty of all the things that God has created for us to enjoy. Yahweh (Jehovah) – the God who provides and protects. The God who will never leave us. The God who is everything that we need. The God who satisfies us. The God who heals us. The God who brings beauty from the ashes. The God who creates all things for HIS glory – including you and I.

I pray that throughout your day, you will experience times when Yahweh leaves you breathless at the beauty of His creation.  Consider that this God - who created all things - is the same God then as now and this God delights in YOU and absolutely loves when you "see" Him all around you.

De-clutter Your Life

About a month ago, I wrote about “Treasures of the Heart”. Since that time our family has bought another house. Buying another house, means that we need to sell our house. This also means we need to de-clutter our house and get rid of some of the junk that has accumulated over the years.

So for one week we worked to got rid of some of the things that we could “never do without out” or “never part with”. We are now living in an uncluttered house, a house that is clean and free of the junk that just took up space, but had no purpose. I believe that we need to do this regularly, rather than every 10 years or so. My husband and I helped each other in deciding what each of us no longer needed. We had to remind each other of that several times. He would say to me: why would you keep that? And I would have to answer with a “good enough” reason. In the end we both realized if we hadn’t used it in a year and it was not a holiday item – pitch it! De-cluttering is so freeing and you will find yourself in a place of less stuff, more space and a place for everything that you really do need to keep.

It was amazing to me the stuff we had accumulated. The things that in the past were a treasure. But, as we worked our way through cleaning out our closets, we wondered “why did we keep this?” Or even worse “What is it?” :)

Isn’t that how our spiritual lives can be, too? We keep the old “treasures”. Hold onto things that seem to have so much value or maybe just something we cannot let go of. So we pack up these memories, these events, sometimes these are painful memories or events. But we pack up these “things” that we cling to. We put them in boxes and store them in closets of our lives. “Just in case” or “maybe someday”.


I believe that periodically it is good to unpack the boxes of our personal and spiritual lives and make some decisions. We all have things that we keep in the “box of our life” that really don’t need to be in our lives. In regards to these things consider this: Does it serve a good purpose? Is it a necessity for my life? Does it really need to be kept?

Maybe with the help of someone who knows you well, I would encourage you to periodically unpack the things in your “lifebox”. Make some tough decisions and then get rid of the things that are just filling your life, but are not beneficial to your life. The things that just take up space and keep us bound to something that has no real meaning. The painful events and memories that we hang onto, when it would be so much better to let them go and move on.

De-clutter your life. I really believe you will be glad that you did.

Treasures of the Heart

Her words hit my core. “Letting go is so hard”. In Ecclesiastes 3 it says “there is a time for everything.” For me personally, the past couple of years have consisted of “letting go” of one thing or another. Letting go of habits. Letting go of pain. Letting go of my plans. Letting go of people. Letting go of the “trophy’s” of this life. Letting go of the identity that I had. Letting go of old regrets. Letting go of bitterness. Letting go of misconceptions about someone else. Letting go of resentment. And, yes, I have found that letting go is so hard. There is a time for everything. Even a time to “let go”. Some things were harder to let go of, than others. I do not see what God sees. God sees from the beginning to the end. He sees “the whole scope”.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 – “God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.” God’s word tells us that there is a time for everything and God makes it beautiful “for its own time”.

But oftentimes I am a like a little kid that doesn’t want to share a toy. I am not about to let go of something that is “MINE”. I fight and I cling and I hold onto it as long as I can. When I try to store up treasures here on earth, sometimes it gets downright ugly. Yes, it is hard to let go. I would be lying if I said I love letting go of things that I have long desired or become very attached to.

Matthew 6 tells us "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” God has planted eternity into our hearts. He created us to desire and yearn for eternity with him. I need to daily remind myself to let go of the treasures I have here. The things that I think give my life purpose. The things I think I need to fulfill my life. The things I give my heart to. For where my heart is…you will also find what I treasure. I think it is time for a treasure hunt.