sleep? what sleep?!?

Yeah, it's 3:16 AM..... It's my own fault, this no caffeine body doesn't respond well to having a ton of it in my system. Some dear friends came over tonight, to go hot tubbing with us, and brought stuff to make iced frappacinnos. Super rich, super yummy, super caffeinated. So, after they left at about 12:15, my dear sexy man and I watched 2 episodes of Fawlty Towers, (our latest Netflix), then went to bed, where I lay and tossed and turned, and tried to get said sexy man to wake up and play, but to no avail. >:( So I got up and got a chicken ready in the crockpot for dinner, took a long shower, read my Sunday school chapter, read some blogs, went to w@h, and now, here I am.

We are just starting going through the book of James in s.s. and I have been soooo negligent in reading/studying it during the week like I should. The familiar passage really struck me tonight, though. James 1: 3,4 "Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." So this says that if my faith is tried, and I let/allow patience to work in me, be completed in this trial, it will complete me, and make me whole. Does that blow your mind?, because it does mine. So this trying by fire of my faith is the only way that I can reach a level of spiritual maturity and completeness....my faith is dead without the works of these various trials that the Lord brings into my path...it is the furnace of hardship that will forge my faith, through patience, into completeness. This is really challenging my mind, and is such an enlightening, beautiful thought for me. ***Just to note here, I am totally free-thought association babbling, let the reader, (if there are any), keep that in mind*** I know that nothing I go through has not been filtered throught the omninpotent hands of my loving Heavenly Father. I know that His ways are above mine, and the thoughts He has towards me are of hope and peace. This verse says to me that the key to "wanting nothing" is to "let patience have her perfect work" while I am "counting it all joy" when I go through trials. --Well, wanting nothing sounds like a peaceful place to be, perhaps I should be doing more to unlock this door into godly contentment.-- Any thoughts by anyone? Please share.

On a differant note, I have heard the verse "faith without works is dead" used to back up a belief that we can lose our salvation if we do not do "works". The "perfect work" of patience seems to be the work it is talking about there. Just to simply spell out my thoughts on salvation losing.....if I can lose, then that means that I can gain it, and then it is no more of grace. If there is ever anything I can do, ever anything dependant upon me that can change the status of my being saved, then my salvation was never of grace, never fully dependant on my Saviour in the first place. Is there anything you can do to change the fact that you were born? Hmm, didn't think so. Is there any act that you can commit, any thought you can hold to, any behaviour so vile that would change your last name, your family name? No. That is why God's analogy of us being his children fits so perfectly. Nothing can change the past, nothing can take back a gift that has been given, even if the recipient tries to give the gift back, the fact that it was given, and recieved at a point in time can never be expunged from history. I don't understand people who believe you can lose your salvation. Perhaps I am taking a simplistic view of it, but that is what the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God has convicted my heart of, and I don't believe that this is a truth meant only for me. There are certainly variations in what the Holy Spirit convicts differant believers of, but there are some things that are so rock solid fundamental to life and faith and the Lord that they apply universally.

On ths subject of the trying of your faith, the dear friends that came over tonight are going through an extremely hard time financially. They have been such a testimony of trying to adhere to exactly what the Lord would have them to do, in money and home and family, and it just is so sad that they should have to be brought to a place like this. But again, perhaps this only means that the Lord is trying their faith, maybe He desires their completion, for them to be perfect and complete, "wanting nothing." They are looking at losing their home, the man having to get a second job, and possibly the loss or at least postponement of their being able to adopt a child. Not fair, not right, they don't deserve this, right? It hurts my heart to see them go through this, but I know that the Lord loves them infinitely more than I do, and He has their greater good in mind. If it were up to me, then no one would ever have to go through these trying times, and never give patience the chance to "have her perfect work." In my finite, comfort loving mind, I would have us all float along, lounging in the mountaintops of blessing, basking in the sunshine of certain care and never having to worry about encountering anything close to a trial. To carry this thought to completion, I would have us all become stagnantly complacent, apathetic in our faith and never knowing the victory of going through a trial clinging for dear life to the only One Who can carry us through. I have heard it said that there is a peace that only comes on the other side of war. Does that mean that there is a spiritual depth that can only come on the other side of heartbreak? Must we have every earthly comfort taken from us before we can fully appreciate that the only comfort worth having is that of being our Heavenly Father's children? Of knowing that He is in control, that we never really are anyway, and of resting ONLY in the fact that God must be our everything? I have not much place to speak on comforts being taken, I live a lush life of provision. My loved ones are with me, I am abundantely cared for and physically provided for, I am guided and protected and dare I say, coddled, by my Lord. I have certainly had some heartbreak, some times of absolute loss and fear and pain, but the place my Father has put me in right now is luxurient. When I take an objective look at the blessings rained down on me, I am humbled, aghast almost at why I should be bestowed with so much, but.....but....NOTHING I HAVE IS BECAUSE I DESERVE IT. Just like nothing I can do can make me deserve my salvation any less than I ever have. It is all from the Lord. The blessings, the allowance of trials, everything is from God. He is truly the author and finisher of our faith, our lives, our existence. It is supremely humbling, and makes me ashamed at my own unawareness most of the time, to truly get a peek at how all encompassing God is. It is Him that allows air for me to breathe, it is Him that keeps the universe together.

--His reach is so far that we can't see the end of it, so we often don't even see the beginning.--

How foolish, how arrogent I am when I allow myself to believe, against the strainings of the Spirit within me, that I am in control, or ulitimately responsible for anything in my life. That not to say that I have no place to live out my Father's will industriously, no constraints of obedience, but just the fact that God is all. Ephesians 4:6 "One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." It is overwhelmingly comforting, and at the same time, extremely fearful, to recognize the magnitude of this truth. How dare I worry? How dare I rage? How dare I question? What is the proper response to this truth?

Farther on in the first chapter of James is one of my most often claimed verses.."If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. " Perhaps the true imparting of this wisdom is a small glimpse of the enormity and needed application of Ephesians 4:6. Sometimes, (to my shame, only sometimes), the vast expanse and the efficacy of Scripture, the very words of God, really pierce my heart.

I think it is time for sleep. I think the Lord has brought me to where my heart needs to be right now, or at least given me a greater hunger to seek that place. That place where I always need to be, looking to my Lord. Keeping my eyes on Him. Oh, I have had such a struggle the last few days with my son not paying attention to, not listening, and then not obeying, and then having to be punished. Has the Lord allowed this to illustrate to me my own behaviour towards Him? It certainly would fit. Oh Lord, I am laid bare before you, please teach me....I believe, help Thou my unbelief.