God's Goals

The other issue that keeps coming up in talks with others and in my own heart is what God's goals are. We often live as if God's goals were to get a ministry going, or to finish a task our pastor gave us, or to get some kind of bump up the spiritual latter in the church leadership structure. No way...God has us where we are for one soul purpose: to get to know HIM better. If it takes sending you to another country like it did with me, or giving you a new ministry challenge, or even taking one away...it's not about the actual thing that's going on...it's about your heart, it's about you seeing another aspect of His character in a new and living way. Another lesser goal...both of these pertaining to the first and second greatest commandments...is people. He sometimes puts me into a place, a ministry, a job, even a hardship so that I can be with people who will help me know Him better...and people that I can help know Him better...that includes especially the people we DON'T get along with. Any time we are unable to complete a task or get along with a person in our sphere of influence it brings us to our knees in dependance upon Him. When we HAVE to be dependant we GET to know HIM!

God's Economy

God keeps teaching my about His economy...I just read the parable where the landowner hires workers and pays them all the same, even those who only worked one hour. To all of us that seems so unfair, but then I started thinking of it in light of God's grace. None of us deserve even an ounce of God's grace...so who cares who's a little bit better than everyone else...to use the common example...when the standard is to jump across the Grand Canyon...who cares if you can jump a bit farther than me.
Everything in God's economy is different than ours...fairness, definitely...the value of money, of course...what greatness is, duh!... His ways are higher than ours and His thoughts, higher than our thoughts.
How desperately we need God to reveal His way of thinking to us.

Church and Family Tragedies

Right now in our church and in my family there are a lot of tragedy...my two grandfathers went into the hospital the same day...both are still not doing well and very old, so you never know if they'll make it. My being so far away probably means I can't go visit. Then in our church (our spiritual family) we have one man who had a heart attack and has been in a coma. Then another guy who was just diagnosed with a pretty bad type of cancer, and then another who's niece committed suicide. On top of that the church is having financial struggles because someone had been stealing money out of the offering box. Our pastor has a lot of stuff to deal with and is plugging along like a good fighter. But...you know...I've been writing here about how God helps us through struggles and difficulties...and it has been soooo true. The messages and times of worship have been soooo deep. The church has grown so close to each other in praying for and standing by these hurting people...and even just yesterday we experience some amazing things in the two that are sick...the guy with the heart attack briefly woke up out of his coma and asked for water and the guy with cancer found out that it is operable (we thought there was no hope). Small little glimmers of hope, but far greater is the greater living hope that is found only in God.

My Newest Song...CONSTANT

Hi Guys,
Thought along those lines that I would share my newest song with you...it's copyrighted so don't steal it ;-) But here goes:

Constant, never changing
There is no shadow of turning in You
Yesterday, forever and today
You will stay the same

And I thank You Lord that I can pour out my heart to You
As a Faithful Creator
And I thank You Lord that Your joy is my strength and my song
My strength and my song....

Copyright Hannah Lawrence (Meierhofer) 2005

It's so simple...but totally biblical and totally true!!

Han

Redemption

You know those situations that just drag on and on and never seem to end...an ongoing argument, marital difficulties, financial issues, problems at work...and they just tear at your resolve and joy in life... Amazingly enough I feel like those times are when I feel closest to God...those times I see new facets of His character that didn't seem so real before. Today a big situation of this draggin on sort just came to a head and was solved (PRAISE GOD!). I feel like God was teaching me that HE IS CONSTANT...a constant sorce of joy and peace...he can only be a constant because He never changes. That's why He can be to me a neverending source of joy. The earthly "shadow" of that I see in my husband...he's always there for me, loves me, holds me when I needs it. And if he is just a normal human being he can't be anything close to what God is to me...He can ALWAYS (around the clock) be there for me, He never changes, He will always love me...I can never disappoint Him because He knows everything. Kinda cool, huh?
Well...I'll leave with that...
Han

Multiplication!

In marketing and sales we always try to achieve multiplication cause it means big time growth. I just read this morning in Exodus that Israel grew and multiplied the most when they were under harsh labor as slaves in Egypt. Ouch! So the times we multiply and grow spiritually are the times where we are going through hard times. God's economy sure is differet from ours!
Han

Daily

daily lessons, daily quiet times, God speaks, God hears!