In a World of broken cups.....

Well I am taking a relationship class with my boyfriend for many reasons…we have had some down time in our relationship the past month…like all couples (Christian or not).. the end result is.. God has made men and women different. He has magnificently wired each of us a maze of our own.

One of my pastors and his wife are giving the class in their cozy home. I have known them since I’m 8 and have noticed since I’m 8 that they have always had that “I’m so crazy about you” look in their eyes towards each other. I am very close with Pastor’s wife and admire her relationship with her husband but more her relationship with God. She always tells me she still freshens up her make up and gets butterflies in her belly before he gets home.. I love that!! I think you never loose the gift of love that way…when you keep your love so dear to you and look at them like the first time you met them…it cant end. Being in love can not become stale…soooo what’s my point…im not sure!

What I am learning in this class ( not that its not the obvious) is that without both of you (husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend) looking to God for what YOU need and what He needs to tell YOU…You can not be what the other person needs…does that make sense?? My pastor used a triangle to explain the bottom he put the man and the women…and at the top he put God. At first the man and the woman are looking at each other and trying to get all they need from one another. At that time their line of intimacy (not necessarily sex) is very far apart its at the longest line of the triangle. Then the husband and wife look to God…and He directs them and corrects them individually. As they focus on Him more and more they begin to move up the triangle together…with the line of intimacy getting closer and closer. So God deals with us and we learn how to deal with each other better. Now we can’t be at the top of the triangle with God until Heaven… but I imagine that even the closer we get the more like heaven it is. So…at the class they made us listen to a great song that really shed a lot of light on something…we all have a crack in our cup. I have posted the words below…but it goes so much better with the song...wish I knew how to do that…lol. But please read it anyway!!

Break in the Cup
From CD Big Horizon by David Wilcox

I try so hard to please you To be the love that fills you up I try to pour on sweet affection, But I think you got a broken cup. Because you can't believe I love you I try to tell you that there is no doubt, But as soon as I fill you with all I've got That little break will let it run right out. I cannot make you happy. I'm learning love and money never do But I can pour myself out 'til I'm empty Trying to be just who you'd want me to. But I cannot make you happy Even though our love is true For there's a break in the cup that holds love Inside of you.

Now I begin to understand you As you explain this fear you feel. It's when you see me fall into that sorrow it makes you doubt the love is real. 'Cause the lonely wind still blows through me I turn away so can't see But now how could I still be so empty With all the love that you pour on me.

I guess you cannot make me happy That's a money back guarantee. But you can pour yourself out 'til you're empty Trying to be just who I'd want you to be. You cannot make me happy It's just the law of gravity And that break in the cup that holds love, Inside of me.

So if you're tempted to rescue me Drowning in this quicksand up to my neck Before you grab my hand to save me Why don't you ask me if I'm finished yet. Because you cannot make me happy Not when I'm empty inside of me But you can pull yourself right in here with me My misery’d love to have your company.

We cannot trade empty for empty We must go to the waterfall For there's a break in the cup that holds love, A break in the cup that holds love, A break in the cup that holds love, Inside us all. Inside us all.
http://www.davidwilcox.com

Now I know its another girly song that us women make you men listen to…but it has sooo much more meaning….so we all are this cup made by God…these cracks whether made by ourselves or by the world need healing….so we look to each other to mend them…and we find them leaking over and over again….And the quicksand… that is when we beat the crap out of ourselves and love to sit and soak in our own misery (how often we sink!!)…and when we see a hand reaching into get us out….oh what it takes to grab it. But then we remember this waterfall of God…that living water...the one that quenches our thirst eternally…and we go and we place in it our cup and it’s streams flow through it and as long as we are seated in the Waterfall our cup is always full. And the best part…the streams that flow from our cracks flow into our relationship with others!! How amazing is that!! I was so excited I wanted to share it!!

Proof Please…..

Jeremiah 2:13
"My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

John 4: 10-14
Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?" Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Revelations 22:1
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb…

Isaiah 43:19
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.
Well…there it is!! It was exciting for me...hope you can follow it I get a little excited and tend to jump around a bit!

In the Great Waterfall…with my cup!
JD

Sacrifice....

Inspired by my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and others blogs I have read on Lent… I decided to really want to learn about lent. It has been one of those things that you know the basics of it but your not really sure why. I have done some reading and realized how important Lent really is for our walk with Jesus. In reading this excerpt from Rev. Kenneth Collins he states that "we avoid Lent because it isn't a happy and uplifting time...But in this we miss the whole point of the incarnation! God became flesh in Jesus. Jesus faced temptation. He suffered hunger and thirst, He suffered the agony of crucifixion. Jesus did not face these things so that we would be exempt from them, He faced these things so that we would have dignity in them.

Last night at our Bible study we talked about how we need to pray for God to reveal to us what He would like us to sacrifice for the 40 days. So that our motives of "giving up" something are not to loose weight or boast in look how long I can not do this....but to really make a connection with God in reflecting at this time with Him.

This Lent lets retreat into the Wilderness with Jesus.....

" Lent is a season of soul-searching and repentance. It is a season for reflection and taking stock. Lent originated in the very earliest days of the Church as a preparatory time for Easter, when the faithful rededicated themselves and when converts were instructed in the faith and prepared for baptism. By observing the forty days of Lent, the individual Christian imitates Jesus’ withdrawal into the wilderness for forty days. All churches that have a continuous history extending before AD 1500 observe Lent. The ancient church that wrote, collected, canonized, and propagated the New Testament also observed Lent, believing it to be a commandment from the apostles. " Rev. Kenneth W. Collins

Another excerpt that I read said...we need to "Give up neglecting God"...she says "instead of giving up chocolate this lent give up what most of us neglect-with more regularity than we care to admit-God".

“So let us show that we as Christians are not just Jesus’ groupies, we are His friends. Let us be bold to join Him, fasting in the wilderness for forty days during Lent; let us be bold to pray with Him, let us fearlessly stand at the foot of His cross on Good Friday, so that we may witness His Resurrection and His Ascension, and join in His triumphant reign. “ Rev. Kenneth Collins

In the wilderness…with Jesus!
J