Monday, June 21, 2010

As I bake and take care of my littles....

Between baking chocolate chip cookies and nursing my little little, I am convicted over and over again by the love of my Father in Heaven of something I touched on a couple days ago in another post. I have been meditating on Matthew 24 and Jesus' telling of the second coming and the end times. I have NEVER EVER been one to say or jump on the bandwagon of "we are in end times." I feel that since Jesus walked the earth, people have been saying we are in end times and in the grand scheme of things, we really always are in end times. Whether the beginning of the end or the end of the end. The Bible says that one day is a thousand years to God and a thousand years, one day. So, in the grand scheme of things, always end times! HOWEVER, God directed me to Matthew 24, which I have read many times. Sometimes we read out of obligation instead of out of eagerness to absorb all of what God has to offer. I guess I have always done that when reading this particular passage because in reading it this last time He led me there, I realize that maybe, just maybe, we are really in the last of the last days. Now let me clarify, I am excited to goto Heaven and to see the face of God and be held by the only real Father I have. I just love my life with my family so much so that I want to spend as much time committing them to my soul as possible. I feel like I have a TON more things to do before I am qualified enough to spend eternity before the Heavenly Hosts! As I am reading this passage of scripture, I realize that we are experiencing almost every single aspect of the Second Coming. Now, whether these last days are 2 years long or 2000 more year long, of course no one will ever know until it happens. However, we should be living as it is the last days each and every day. Therein lies CONVICTION in my heart!!! I am so far under par that it would take another round for me to even break even. I am sure of it!!! My whole life is a joke! Really! I have paraded around living for myself and the world for so long. Only in the last 4-6 years or so have I even begun to break through to the life I know God wants me to live. And really the past 2-3 years have I changed the most in my thinking and actions. I fall short of the glory probably more than you do, reader! I am far from near able to walk through the gates of Heaven unblemished. I desire desperately to live a life worthy of the King. And I am working hard to be there. Thank God for Grace and Mercy and His unfailing Love that He covers me with daily because without it, Satan would have had me at Hello!

The main reason I have never been the "end times" kind of person is this: I feel that the church uses that to scare people into salvation. Honestly, as true as it may be, there is really no love for an unbeliever in "end times." It's a scary picture painted in Matthew, Revelation, and other parts of the Word. Sure, we know as believers in Christ, that it is because He loves us that He is coming again, to establish His Kingdom and the New Earth. But to an unbeliever or new Christian, it's hard to see love and compassion in that picture! Secondly, the Bible says that no man knows the hour of His coming. Who are we, as humans, that we think so highly of ourselves, that we feel it is up to us to predict the time Jesus will come again??? Sure, God says in Luke 12:6-7 "Aren't five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one sparrow is forgotten by God. Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth much more than many sparrows!" We are more than the fowl of the air, but compared to God and His infinite Almighty-ness, who are we??? "What is man that thou art mindful of him, the Son of Man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:4/Hebrews2:5-6) Thirdly, I feel that the people who witnessed the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah were likely thinking, "This is the second coming of Christ." The people were TERRIBLE, to say the least! Probably worse that we are now! Maybe not, actually!!

The lesson I feel God is teaching me, or lessons, I should say are these: 1.) Always goto His Word in complete reverence and with an open heart to absorb as much as I can. I REFUSE to read the Bible when I am not totally focused on what the King of Kings can reveal to me. It is like staring at a wall for me. If I need to, I worship first in music, I get in my prayer closet and pray that He renews my heart, and then I get in the Word. That is me and my personal battle daily. I realize some people may feel differently about this, but this is where I am right now in my walk. Judgment saved for the day I meet my Father! 2.) End times are upon us. Whether I want to admit it or not. They are! Deal with it, chica!!!! And do something about it! Walk in righteousness, forgiveness, grace, love, and humility each day! It is my heart's cry just to measure up day to day! 3.) What has appealed to me in Matthew, among all others things (as there is soooooooo much that speaks right to my heart strings), is this: 19And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! (pregnant and nursing mothers, which is my heart's passion). I compare that to what times we are living in. People are rarely excited about women being pregnant anymore. It's always attached with some social stigma..."what about a house? a bigger car? how will you afford food? child care? clothes? diapers? etc..." Children are a gift from God and Joe and I are LIVING testimonies to the fact that 1.) God will never give you what you cannot handle. 2.) When you are living for Him to bring Him glory and honor, He will not leave you to struggle. It is when you take your eyes off of Him and put them on the world and it's standards that you find struggle and strife. Not only are pregnancies rarely celebrated anymore, but more than two pregnancies is taboo in our culture. At the rate we are going, our population is declining in negative numbers. Interesting. If we are truly in end times, as the church will have you believe, (and as I am now coming to see) shouldn't we "be fruitful and mulitply" for the sake of the Kingdom??? For the sake of God??? Satan doesn't want us to have children. So he uses the world and society stigma to attack women and families! As a LLL leader (in training) and a nursing mama to two sweet boys, I hear and see and have been privy to the hatefulness of breastfeeding. Cover up. Sit in a secluded room, usually nasty bathrooms. Wean too early. Give solids too soon. Or call solid "real food" as if my milk isn't. Etc... The list goes on and on...I see it now. My eyes are open. Of course I plan to reverse both of these stigmas as I walk in Biblical truth! When Mary, mother of Jesus, went to visit Elizabeth and she found Mary to be pregnant with Jesus, her baby leaped in her womb. Pregnancy was cherished and exciting back then! Hannah begged for a child and promised his life unto the Lord's service. (1 Samuel 1:11) The Bible says that the barren womb (as compared to land without water) is never satisfied and never says it is enough! "the grave, the barren womb, land, which is never satisfied with water, and fire, which never says, 'Enough!'" (Proverbs 30:16) Which makes me wonder, and this is my personal, over-analytical wonder, if the reasons we haves such trouble in the area of reproductive organs and fertility is because we aren't leaving the womb and matters of the womb up to God. He says he opens and shuts the womb. Who are we to take that role and play God?? Jesus was breastfed, as history shows, until he was 7 or 8!!! Almost all places in the Bible where nursing or breastfeeding is talked about, the children were 7-8 years old. More than that, it was an exciting time! When the child weaned, the father has celebration feasts to commemorate the day that the child was now ready to enter mentorship to manhood. The men of Bible days knew what a woman was. He respected her body as a temple of God and His matters. In 1 Samuel 1:21-23, I find it so beautiful that Hannah did nothing in the way of "church" other than nurse her child, as that was most important. Elkanah respected her and knew this was so important that he says to her:
"1:21 And the man Elkanah, and all his house, went up to offer unto the LORD the yearly sacrifice, and his vow.

1:22 But Hannah went not up; for she said unto her husband, I will not go up until the child be weaned, and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the LORD, and there abide for ever.

1:23 And Elkanah her husband said unto her, ******Do what seemeth thee good; tarry until thou have weaned him; only the LORD establish his word. So the woman abode, and gave her son suck until she weaned him.*****

How beautiful it is to me!!! "Only the Lord establish his word." Only God can tell you when it is time to wean!!!! I am so blessed to have a husband who finds the matters of the womb not only beautiful but holy and thinks of breastfeeding not as sexual, but as a bonding holy nourishment. I praise God for Him each day!

I am not on a soap box or anything of the like. I am speaking my heart and hoping it touches someone else's heart! We are in end times. Enough of my denial! Now I vow to take action and not worry about hurting people's feeling with the truth of God's Word. If the Bible and its contents offend you so deeply that you can not take reproach, you need to check where your heart is!!! You are never too old to have new revelation and never to young to be ineffective when the Kingdom of God is at hand!!!

I challenge you to buy, check out, borrow (I have copies available) the following books:
Family Un-Planning-Craig Houghton
Be Fruitful and Multiply-Nancy Campbell
Power of Motherhood-Nancy Campbell
A Full Quiver-Rick and Jan Hess
Breastfeeding and Fertility-Jenny Silliman
Does The Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?- Randy Alcorn
The Bible And Birth Control-Charles D. Provan

Websites: http://www.aboverubies.org

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