May 27, 2009 by Teri Frana.

I’ve been continuing my word study of the Fruit of the Spirit and hit a little detour today. As I search through the Bible for words like; joy, love, hope, kindness, self-control, I’ve been finding a lot of the word, “rest”. They seem to go hand-in-hand quite often.

So today, I took a tangent to study the word “rest” and came across something I just had to share. I don’t have much time because my four year old is in the tub and I need to go to the store soon, ’cause you know my life doesn’t offer a lot of times for rest. (God is too funny!)

Here is the scripture which stuck out to me:
“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”  Matthew 11:29

True rest comes from taking on only the burdens God intends us to bear and relying upon Jesus to be rest for our souls. Hummmmm…. Once again I’m struck with the simplicity of this and how much I’ve tried to rest over the years. I spent two years contemplating what it meant to rest and ended up writing a retreat about how to rest. Yet somehow, the simplicity of resting IN the Lord escaped me once more.

He is truly gentle and humble and when we find ourselves IN HIM, we find rest which bathes our souls in the warmth of His love and massages our hearts with the strength of His mercy.

I want to find that kind of vacation on Kayak! Sign me up!

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May 20, 2009 by Teri Frana.

“I rise before dawn and cry for help;
I have put my hope in your word.” Psalm 119:147 NIV

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with your chest tight with worry? You might have even set your worry aside in prayer before you went to bed, only to wake up in the dead of night with the fear-o-meter needle going haywire. Despite your best efforts to calm yourself back to sleep you toss and turn, flip the pillow, and practice deep breathing exercises there is still no sleepy, sleepy only wakey, wakey.

Has this ever happened to you? I get the wakey, wakeys when something is gnawing at me or some big event is looming in the near future. It happened to me just this morning at 3a.m. I have a few too many loose ends on my plate right now and I don’t cope very well with getting all the little details tied up! I woke up fretting that I might miss something important.

In the past, I’ve tried all the practical methods of dealing with the panic or anger which usually keeps me awake. I tried praying, praying out loud, singing, reading, breathing, and journaling. I’ve even tried sleep aids. (Just a side note, but a sleep aid taken at 3am doesn’t seem to take affect until about 20 minutes before your alarm goes off which makes for a very long next day.) Sometimes these things work and sometimes they don’t.

However, I’ve now found the silver bullet which works EVERY time: reading God’s word. It’s the only surefire method I’ve found to deal with the sense of hopelessness 3am attacks often bring. Somehow, someway, God’s designed the LIVING WORD to give you just what you need, just when you need it.

Now when I feel that desperation start to creep over me which tells me my worries have become too heavy, I get up, and open the Bible. I pray and ask God to lead me to the still waters of His love. Then I just start reading.

If the fire in my soul isn’t quenched within ten minutes, I go to  and type in what I’m feeling into the search like, “fear”, or “despair”, or “anger”, and then start reading the verses which pop up. In inevitably, just like this morning, the Word come which fill my heart to overflowing and I begin singing praise tunes in my head.

I’m finding sometimes it’s hard to go back to sleep just because I’m so filled with love for my Lord that I just want to stay and hang out with Him longer. I know, I know. It sounds crazy – but, it’s true. God’s Word never fails.

Try it the next time you find yourself crying out at 3am. You just might find you are crying with HOPE.

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May 19, 2009 by Teri Frana.

This is a continuation from the post, “What Makes Him Him”.

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” John 15:11

I’m still wondering what joy means to me personally. For some reason, I just don’t get JOY. It’s not the same as happiness because joy does not depend on “happenings”. I understand this at an intellectual level. I’ve even experienced joy at the emotional level, usually coming from watching something my kids have done.

But, I’ve been seeking what it means to experience joy at a SPIRITUAL level. I want the joy which comes from the Lord to well up inside me all the time. I don’t think that’s asking too much! Joy from the Lord doesn’t depend on anything but His goodness, and we know that He is always good. Logically this means because I have access to God through the Holy Spirit, I can always experience spiritual joy.

The verses which really cling to me about joy are in John 15 – the “ABIDE” chapter in the King James Version. Jesus is talking with His disciples just before the end. I can see Him almost pleading with them to get the concept of abiding (remaining) IN Christ.

Jesus is describing to them an almost mystical union between God, Jesus, and each of them personally. He says to “remain in me”. I’ve spent years trying to get this analytical brain around this concept. What does remaining IN Jesus look like, feel like, taste like, and how do you do it???

I’ve come to the conclusion, it doesn’t look very different than you would think; pray, read God’s Word, study, learn, serve, give, meditate. The outwardly actions aren’t much different than what most of us know is right. However, what IS different is the heart behind the actions. What motivates the action?

When you aren’t abiding, you see those things as a checklist of what a “good Christian” does. When you are abiding, you understand there are no “good Christians”, only a good God.

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.” Mark 10:18

When you aren’t abiding, you do these things out of habit, duty, the need to feel better about yourself, or the need to look better to others. When you are abiding, you do these things because you can’t face this world without their healing balm and comforting strength.

When you aren’t abiding, doing these things does little more than give you momentary peace, joy, and love. When you are abiding, doing these things only gets you in tune with the presence of God WHO IS peace, joy, and love.

I ask myself daily, is my peace, joy, and love rooted in my own heart, ability, self-discipline, or habits? Or is my peace, joy, and love deeply rooted in the God of peace, joy, and love?

Does my joy come from doing the right things? Or does it come from being in the presence of the Almighty God, Creator of the Universe, King of Kings and Lord of Lords? Being IN Him makes my joy complete.

“If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” John 15:10-12

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