January 9, 2010 by Teri Frana.

I woke up this morning a little empty, a little weary, with my soul aching for God.  I haven’t had time to fill up with Him and His Word as often as I’d like.  I’ve finally learned how pointless it is to try to keep going on my spiritual fumes.  So, I had to rearrange my schedule and open up some God and Teri time.

After reading and praying, I felt much better.  Then I decided to listen to a podcast from my favorite teacher, Matt Chandler from the Village Church in Dallas.  He is a young, brilliant, passionate man who reads the scriptures with fresh and discerning eyes.  I randomly picked a sermon from their archives and found this one.

If you are much of a church goer, you’ve heard the story of the Prodigal Son over and over again.  However, I can guarantee you’ve not heard it like this.  Somehow, Pastor Chandler is able to put you in the story as Jesus tells it to first century Palestine, yet he keeps you glued to your seat here in 2010 at the same time.  I’ve never known anyone who can do both at the same time.  God has blessed him with a great talent.

It will be a major blessing to you if you take the 45 minutes to listen to this message.  I pray you are as blown away as I have been.

http://hv.thevillagechurch.net/resource_files/audio/20070106AA01S_MattChandler_TheTrilogy.mp3

PRAYERS
I believe this message is from 2007 or 2008.  In December 2009, Matt found out he has brain cancer.  He had surgery to remove most of the mass, but not all.  He is currently on radiation and chemo.  He has a young family with three children.  He now has the opportunity to live out his faith in ways that will be a testimony to thousands and thousands of people who may come to their own faith through his story.  Please pray for him and his family and his church and his testimony.

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January 7, 2010 by Teri Frana.

I had an incredibly interesting “duh moment” just now…

I’ve been aching to write in my blog daily, or near daily.  There is so much to say, so many questions to ask, so much to ponder and wonder about.  In the past I’ve always spent quite a bit of time on each post, making sure it flowed and said what I wanted it to say, and most importantly, I tried to have a teaching point.  Because, quite frankly, I’m a teacher at heart - it’s how I think, what motivates me to get going, how I communicate, what I am passionate about.  You can take the girl away from teaching but you can’t take the teacher out of the girl!

I simply haven’t been able to get enough time carved out of my schedule to be consistent in my blogging no matter what I’ve tried.  As I was pondering this once more tonight, it hit me, every post doesn’t need to contain researched, well constructed, thoroughly thought-out and edited teaching points.  DUH!!  Sometimes, I can just share what’s going on in my heart!  DOUBLE DUH!!

This is my blog - and I guess I can do with it what I want.  DUH  DUH   DUH!

So, I’d thought I’d share just a bit of what is happening with me lately…

I just finished writing a letter to a pastor talking about my spiritual walk.  Here is an excerpt:

Here I am at the hardest time of my life. I’m waiting for something to change.  I’m sitting in jail waiting for the cupbearer to remember me.   I believe with all my heart God has called me to a ministry, yet nothing seems to be breaking through.   I have slammed my strength into every wall in this cell, every concrete slab, and every iron bar to get out, alas, I must wait.

Right now, I believe God is teaching me joy. He has gifted me with great peace and contentment – now He is upping the ante to joy.  Not only joy despite – but joy because!  Still not there yet – but I feel His fingers at work in the “joy lobe” of my spirit. I praise Him for all that He is!

I just think it’s funny, although terribly Biblical, that from all earthly accounts, I’m at the worst place in my entire life.  However, I’ve never experienced such peace, joy, and hope even in the best of times. For some crazy reason, God has seen fit to give me such grace as to not only help me experience joy despite my circumstances, no, He wants me to experience joy because of my circumstances.  I keep getting this feeling that God is excited about how dire my situation is, because now He will have an opportunity to show His power and might through them.

I’m not saying I know what God will do.  I’m not necessarily trying to expect anything.  I’m just saying this is how I’ve been feeling lately.  There seems to be this sense of excitement that is building in side me from a source other than a human generated one.

Only time will tell and only God knows.  But for tonight, it is sufficient.

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:8-10

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January 4, 2010 by Teri Frana.

Anyone who knows me would describe me as a “go-getter” – someone who is constantly working on a goal of some sort.  In fact, I’ve pretty much always trained others on how to set goals and achieve them.  In the past few years, God has been very hard at work, changing my perceptions of goals and how God views my performance. 

It’s been in the last five years especially God has opened my eyes to see just how precious rest is.  In order for Him to get my attention, He basically had to take away all that I was striving for, but on the other side of that, I must say that the lesson of rest is one of the best gifts He’s ever given me.

First I had to learn what rest meant.  I don’t know as I ever did it, at least without feeling guilty.  It’s not exactly just sitting around twiddling your thumbs. It’s a purposeful pause in your day or week to simply be still in your heart, mind, soul, and strength and hang out with God. 

I also didn’t realize how much work went in to resting.  I have to think ahead, persevere, guard my time, say no to things I don’t want to say no to, and do nothing even when I’d really rather be doing something.  I had to learn to be happy in silence.  

I’ve come to realize that describing an American as “busy” is redundant.   Somehow in our quest for more quality of life, we’ve lost something very valuable.  We lost depth.  We lost insight.  We’ve lost meaningful connection.  We lost the power of musing, thinking, pondering, and posing questions.  We’ve cut them out of our schedule and deemed them “unproductive.”

We are constantly trying to invent time-effective ways to connect; like Facebook, Twitter, and texting.  We’re learning to make our musing and connections fit within a five second window.  Not that I’m against any of these - in fact, I use all of them.  But, my truest connections do not happen there.  They happen in the space and time that I purposely carve out of my schedule to allow my mind, heart, soul, and strength to rest and just be.

It is in that time I connect the deepest with my friends and family and with God.  Don’t know if you noticed, but the Bible isn’t written like a text or a Twitter post.  If we aren’t careful, we will lose the ability to embrace something richer and more profound that a five word sentence as a complete thought.   Do not replace the gourmet of your Sabbath rest with fast-food style relationships.  Each has their time and space in your life.  

Make rest a New Year’s resolution this year.  You might have to say no to Facebook for a whole day.  You might need to open your Bible and pray and pray for God to reveal something to you there.  You might struggle a bit with your mind wandering to a zillion other things.  You might need to not take that trip to the store for things you probably don’t need.  Or you may need to redefine what you think you need.  You might need to say “no” to the kids or the family or to friends or to church.  In essence, you could be saying “yes” to you and God.

Saying “yes” to rest, as hard as that is, may be the best thing you will ever do.  As painful as silence can be to our American, 21st Century ears, it can grow to be the best sound you’ve ever hear.  There is something beyond anything you’ve experienced waiting for you in the silence, rest, and quiet contemplation of God.  I pray that you find it in 2010 - but, it will take some work and a lot of resolve.  

“The LORD said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.’Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.” 1 Kings 19:11-12

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