A glance in the right way!

I don't think I would have ever taken this on alone, but along with a group of ready and willing women, I have been studying the book of James. It is full of convicting information to say the least, with no fluff! I just knew the first few weeks that I was going to end up needed a counselor on a full-time basis. At first I felt like an onion that was being peeled back and exposed layer by layer. You see, much of James talks about our "talk." He focuses a great deal on what comes out of our mouths!!! The real source of our "talk" is deep within our hearts. That little ticker that pumps our blood also seems to be the keeper of out deepest feelings and what travels to the brain to form our thoughts. Thoughts often come out in the form of our "talk" or our actions. This chain reaction is all a lot to think about!!!

Speaking of onions and layers, I left Banner last week chopping an onion to go in our taco meat and Brazos chopping one for his hot sauce. When I came back into the kitchen to check on their progress, I saw that they had added accessories. You might be thinking aprons, but guess again. They had on sunglasses. We keep a pile sunglasses in a junk drawer in the kitchen. You can find a pair of old scratched up Dora ones, several XTO safety glasses, and some of my old ones from random dollar stores and Target specials.

When I stopped smiling and laughing out loud at the cute culinary team in my kitchen, I asked them why on earth they had on glasses. They both let me know quickly how painful it was to peel and cut up onions. They had seen me stand at the island in the kitchen crying, but they never had experienced the burn themselves... until now... They thought the glasses might shield them from the pain of the onion. Oh, my children! I thought to myself...yeah, that was me back in June when I began peeling back some of the layers of my heart in the James study. Painful, but necessary to get to where I need to be!

I discovered an amazing, yet simple truth in James this week. James 4:8 says "Come near to God and he will come near to you." This is not a game of hide and seek like I often witness during the heat of the summer in my home when the fun moves inside. The kids love to hide in my closet and it is so full of junk that I worry I may loose them for good. This verse is different than that game because the Lord is not hiding and this life is not a game. If we come near to God, he will come near to us. It is as simple as that! The Lord does not hide. He came to seek and save.

It dawned on me today that the Lord is ready and waiting for us to make the slightest motion in His direction. We don't even have to make a leap, take a big step, or move really at all. We only have to look up in our present situation, whatever it may be, and acknowledge Jesus Christ. It only takes a glance His way for life to begin changing. He has been waiting all along for us to need Him and give up the fight by admitting we do need help. The minute we glance in His direction and say we need Him, He is by our side, ready to help us with anything and everything we need!

How amazing and sweet it is to me that we don't have to do anything more than look His way. In this world, I often feel like everything we do there is a prerequisite or an expectation. The Lord simply asks us to come near! I needed that truth this week. I sometimes find myself living a life based on feelings... feeling this and that, up and down, here and there. My feelings all were settled when I got this new truth! He is near and all it takes is a glance in the direction of the Lord to get back on track.