Just Ask

A few weeks ago the Lincoln Public Schools district office burned down. 

Completely destroyed. 

Today, I had to call the temporary office to ask some questions.

In the midst of sorrow and loss, Jean, who answers the phone has made a deliberate choice to rise above.

She answered the phone with one question:

"How may I serve you?" 

Usually when you call an office you're asked how they can help you, but serve you? 
It took me off guard and got me thinking. 

Sometimes when I talk to God I just ask.

Days can go by when I may not even praise, just ask. 

Ask for help, guidance or relief for my husband who is in chronic pain. 

Ask for interference in a friend or one of my kids' life who is seeking anything but You. 

Ask for peace, wisdom, insight and energy. 

Salvation has been given from asking.

Forgiveness has been granted from my asking. 

Grace has been poured over my undeserving self from asking.

I ask. Sometimes He answers. Sometimes He tells me to be still and just know. 

Know that He is God. That He is able. 

But I can honestly tell you in all my asking with hopeful gain I have never simply asked Him  

                                                                "How may I serve You?" 

So today... 

I praise. 

And I humbly ask, 

"Lord, how may I serve You?"

Like Charlie Sheen says...WINNING!

My sister Michelle said something the other day while we were in the car together that stayed put in my mind.

"I wonder if God ever looks at us and says, you're too much." 

We live in a world that we can dismember a baby while God's in the midst of forming him or her.

We can break every vow we took on our wedding day and make walking out on our family
look like an exercise.

We live in a world that 

a woman can go out on the town with no plan and the next morning a pharmacist can hand her Plan B over the counter and erase her night of irresponsibility before she leaves the store. 

We can fill our arteries with heart stopping fast food made by a teenager that just returned from a smoke break.

We can go broke living beyond our means no matter the cost to keep up with the Jones', the Smith's and the Johnson's trying to portray what we want others to see and yet be a mess within the walls of our heart. 

We live in a world that 

has low morals and and high teen pregnancy and crime.
Where morons are trying to take God out of the school, the state and get Him off of our radios. 

Being a Christian in today's world is not easy. 

But He never said it would be. 

When the media didn't have something meaningful like Alabama or Joplin to focus on,
they gave us hours of Charlie Sheen and his ridiculous lifestyle while he yelled "Winning".

Such a clear picture of what Satan must think and do. 

When a Daddy confesses to secrets he thought he could hide from his wife and kids all while attending church  because God is just a religion...Winning!

When a woman overturns her belief in abortion so her life won't be inconvenienced...Winning!
When a teen turns to drugs instead of the Jesus inside of them...Winning!

And yet in the midst of crazy, our God doesn't look down and say "you're too much" but instead says
"Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you". 

He sees us for who we are and wants relationship with us in spite of ourselves.

He endured the beatings, the torture and the cross for us.
He stuck to God's Plan A and was carried into that grave dead to walk out alive
with the hope that we would accept His sacrifice and choose to spend eternity with Him.

And when we do choose Him all the angels shout...

WINNING!

And through the tears of my grateful heart all I can manage to whisper is...
What an amazing Savior.

Blessings,