The Architect and The Artist

Showing posts with label Count. Show all posts

Count Your Blessings {Think On These Things}

Sunday, October 22, 2017

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I open to the book of James and the verse strikes at me right between the eyes. Count. It. All. Joy. It is the ALL that sticks in my throat. Every last little thing? Surely, God, You don't mean ALL. It is apparent that I have misread the words, right? And I am like the little two year old on the cassette tape...skipping some of her numbers...counting to her momma and daddy... 1...2...3...5. I thought I had learned to count, but the recording of that toddler...of me..is just like the adult version who still has some learning to do in the counting department. To learn to count it ALL. Learning to count the heartaches and the sorrows. To count griefs as graces {Ann Voskamp}. To count problems as praises. To not skip any of life's challenges. To count it ALL joy.

There is a book that sits by my bed. The one with the bird and "believe" on the cover. It holds my new lessons in counting since it is blatantly obvious that numbers aren't my thing. The one where I count it all. The one where I count the pains. The one where I count the heartaches. The one where I count them as gifts. These are the hardest to count, not because of the high numbers, but because of the high cost to me. Thanksgiving is hard when it comes to having gratitude for grief.

The pages don't lie. There are sorrows. Painful abuse. Deaths. Rejection. Friendship failure. And yet, He asks me to count them as JOY. For several years now I have counted and tried to "believe" like the journal cover proclaims that the heartaches can become "heart joys". And you know what I have found? A Father that loves me. That wants to give me joy. That is only out for my good. A Savior that in order to save me brought grief into my life because He knows that nothing and no one rises again unless there is death. That pain brings peace as crazy as it sounds. That counting griefs as graces bring gladness. I wouldn't have believed it...but I lived it. I can look back on the gratitude list of grief and be glad for a Father that loves me.

Will you join me in November as we learn to count all over again? We will write out these verses below on the ways God blesses us, and if you are up for the challenge start a list...starting counting the way He loves you.

You can download the file here.

If you would like all the Think on These Things verses or want to know more about it, click here. Want to know why Scripture writing is so beneficial? See this post.

Instagram

During the month I try to post my thoughts on the verses on Instagram. If you would like to follow me you can find me here. Also, if you are posting your own thoughts there please use the hashtag #thinkonthesethings. I would love to read how God speaks to you!!

Supplies

There are many ways you can use these verses. You can read and meditate on them. You can write them out as you meditate on them. You can read them and then write about them in a journal or journaling Bible. You could do verse mapping with them (See this post). Here are some of the items I use...

A single column journaling Bible allows you to make notes in the margins.

ESV Single Column Journaling Bible (TruTone, Chestnut, Leaves Design)
ESV Single Column Journaling Bible (Black)
ESV Single Column Journaling Bible (Brown, Flap with Strap)

Some highlighters {These are my absolute favorites!}...

Eco Highlighter Pencils - Set of 5 Colors

Black pens are great for writing out the verses...

Black Ink Pen Set
Black Artist Pen Set

I love these journals that lay flat...easier to write in! They are great for Scripture writing!
Studio Oh! Deconstructed Journals

Let's Think On These Things!

What Gratitude Can Do for Your Heart...

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

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Ever feel grumpy? Discontent? Struggling with depression and anxiety? Click on over to His Mercy is New today as I share about how gratitude can change our hearts! I talk about my seven year journey of keeping a gratitude list and how it has changed my perspective! Also, check out the resources below if you would like to start a habit of keeping a gratitude journal.

How Gratitude Changes a Heart

Sunday, August 23, 2015

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In October it will have been six years. Six years and counting. Six years of counting. That fall morning in 2009, I started a small list. Honestly, I didn't know how long I would last. I am great at starting things, but many times fizzle out over time. I had no idea how much I would need an ever-growing list that I would add to each week of the gifts God brought to me. In November of that year God would start a journey for me that I would not want to take. He knew I would need gratitude to keep my head above water and my mind sane. With each gift that I wrote down {or for many years typed on this screen to post on the blog}, my attitude changed. My heart held onto hope. A hope that maybe life is not as bad as it seems. Maybe when I am not watching He is giving gifts.

So almost six years and working my way to 6,000 gifts I have come to realize my great need for continuing my list. Yes, there have been seasons in life where the list was slower to grow. There have been times when it has exploded with abundance. Here's my thoughts after maintaining this habit for longer than I expected.

{Three of my gratitude journals}

A grumpy heart needs gratitude. There are times when I have a rough day. My mood is grumpy at best...foul at worst. Or maybe there is a tinge of jealousy creeping into my heart. Or maybe seemingly nothing has gone my way. Those are the days that I am finding I need to pull out my list and take a few minutes to thank God for the good I may have missed. Without fail, my mood improves if I will just sit and thank Him.

Gratefulness brings the positive memories back. I love that I can go back to my lists and remember what God has done for me. There are events and people that have happened in my life that I have completely forgotten about...flowers from a student, uplifting words, watching my son ice climb, playing family games. All gifts that would be forgotten if they weren't written down.

A hurting heart makes a gratitude list grow faster. During 2013, I went through some major changes in life. Painful changes. While I can look back and now see a glimmer of what God was doing and why He was allowing such devastation, at the time I was completely lost. All I could do was list as many graces as possible so that I wouldn't sink under the deepening grief. My list exploded during that time. I am sure part of why I survived it all had to do with counting God's gifts.

Gratitude makes a heart trust. Having a list of what God has done has caused me to trust Him more. There is just too much evidence in those journals to not believe Him. So when I am facing anxiety over an upcoming event all I have to do is remember all those graces and gifts listed. While trust has NEVER been my strong suit gratefulness has helped me overcome my doubt about God's goodness.

Need help starting a list?

One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are- I love Ann Voskamp's book on how gratitude changed her life.

Need a gratitude journal that's free and printable?

Another free, printable gratitude journal

Learning to Count It ALL Joy

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Join me this week as I take a look back at what I have learned through picking a Word of the Year. This is a post from 2014 when my word was COUNT.

I open to the Book of James and the verse strikes at me right between the eyes. Count. It. All. Joy. It is the ALL that sticks in my throat. Every last little thing? Surely, God, You don't mean ALL. It is apparent that I have misread the words, right? And I am like the little two year old on the cassette tape...saying her numbers...counting to her momma and daddy... 1...2...3...5. I thought I had learned to count, but the recording of that toddler...of me...proves that I still have some learning to do in the counting department. To learn to count it ALL.

Learning to count the heartaches and the sorrows. To count griefs as graces {Ann Voskamp}. To count problems as praises. That is what it means to count it ALL. To count it ALL joy.

There is a book that sits by my bed. The one with the bird and "believe". It holds my new lessons in counting since it is blatantly obvious that numbers aren't my thing. The one where I count it all. The one where I count the pains. The one where I count the heartaches. The one where I count them as gifts. These are the hardest to count, not because of the high numbers, but because of the high cost to me. Thanksgiving is hard when it comes to having gratitude for grief.

The pages don't lie. There are sorrows. Painful abuse. Deaths. Rejection. Friendship failure. And yet, He asks me to count them as JOY. For a year now I have counted. Tried to "believe" like the journal cover proclaims that the heartaches can become "heart joys". And you know what I have found? A Father that loves me. That wants to give me joy. That is only out for my good. A Savior that in order to save me brought grief into my life because He knows that nothing and no one rises again unless there is death. That pain brings peace as crazy as it sounds. That counting griefs as graces bring gladness. I wouldn't have believed it...but I lived it. I can look back on the gratitude list of grief and be glad for a Father that loves me.

The counting it ALL joy. One of the best things I have ever done...

Ditch the Resolutions {Word of the Year}

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Tired of making New Year's resolutions that never get fulfilled? Here's another option...

In 2009, I chose Patience. Prayer became the focus in 2010. Grace in 2011 taught me some difficult lessons in forgiveness. Abide in 2012. In 2013, Redeemed became the word and the promise that God would take all the grief I was enduring and use it for my good. I decided this past year to Count...to explore what really matters/counts in life. In the second half of 2014, I began to experience a tremendous amount of healing from the events of 2013. I want to continue down that road...Stop by next week and I will share my Word of the Year for 2015 which relates to the healing I have been experiencing.

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My One Word: Change Your Life With Just One Word is a great resource to learn more about the concept of using a Word of the Year. One word to focus on for the year. Forget New Year's Resolutions. When have you ever fulfilled all of them? And if you have, may I ask, can I meet you? You must be awesome! LOL! A Word for the Year is simpler...helps us focus on how God wants to change our hearts instead of us trying to change our behavior. Real change only comes with heart change, right?

My One Word: Change Your Life With Just One Word lays out how to pick a word, how to allow God to use that word to transform you, and how to allow the word to "morph" into something unexpected that God has in store for you. My greatest transformations in the past few years have come not from a bunch of resolutions, but in focusing on just a word. There is also a DVD study that follows a lot of what the book has to offer.

So are you game? Ready to throw out that list of resolutions? Just say the word...

Count {Word of the Year in Review}

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

This past year I have done a lot of counting. Count. The concept I chose for my Word of the Year for 2014. In 2013, I was in a sense stripped down to nothing in many areas of life. I knew it was time to adjust and find out what really matters (counts). I have to say that I have really enjoyed the journey this year...to realize that maybe some of the things that were in my life weren't really significant. Above all, I learned that no one's opinion of me really counts except for Christ's. His is all that matters.

So here's a look at the counting I did this past year...

The most popular post of the year of counting was When You Get Unfriended. It must have struck a chord with many people. We have all experienced relationships that went sour. The pain is real...especially when you are the one rejected. What counts though is that Christ counts us as friends.

God has taught me that counting griefs as graces is the only way to survive the storms of life. But counting it ALL even the hard events of life as gifts from God can be tough. Ultimately, I began to see that what had been so painful in my life was there to bless me.

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{My Great Grandfather}

Sheep and counting. As an insomniac, I am all too familiar with this "remedy" for lack of sleep. However, the One that never sleeps nor slumbers counts sheep, too. Why? Hop over here and find out.

Community counts because two are better than one. God, Himself, is a part of a community {the Trinity}, and it is in community that we do our greatest growing.

Need to learn to count your days? The marking off of days leaves a mark on our souls if we will start each day in His love.

I know I just told you that we have a God that counts {sheep}, but really God doesn't count when it comes to our sins.

Are you dying to count? We only count when we don't count...

"Was it worth it?", you ask. They turned on you. They hurt you. Was it worth it to love? Yes, because the only thing that counts is to love God and THEM!

Do you want to learn more about the concept of a "Word of the Year"? Next week I will have a review of a book that lays it all out, My One Word: Change Your Life With Just One Word. Much easier than a list of New Year's resolutions!

When You Get Unfriended...

Sunday, October 12, 2014

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Facebook can be a miracle or a monster depending on how you look at it. The upside? We are able to keep in touch and find long lost friends and maybe a relative or two. The downside...we can see and hear way too much about people's lives. And then there is the unfriending...

I have been unfriended several times, and to be totally transparent I have unfriended once because I didn't feel safe around the person. Most of the time I have no idea why the unfriendings occurred. I have suspicions though...gossip flew and my status in another's eyes sunk. Anger flared. Jealousy raged. Some just moved on. While most have been no big deal there have been a couple that have stung and hurt the heart. I have had to heal not from the virtual unfriending but the real ruin of relationships with those that I loved and cared for. The unfriending on Facebook was just a symptom of a much deeper breaking.

As I go through the process of healing I am understanding more and more that our only real, true friend doesn't live on social media and never touches technology. {Who needs technology when your knowledge encompasses the whole web and so much more?} His friendship stands regardless of our forgetfulness of Him or our sin towards Him. He is a constant companion and never practices unfriending. We can rest in the fact that with God our status will remain "friends". There is no rejection. There is no sting. He is here to stay regardless of those that move away from us...regardless of the fact we move away from Him. What counts is that He counts us as friends.

Sure, there have been times in the last few years that I have felt like an outsider...the one not worthy to be friended...the one living on the outskirts of others' lives. But as Thom Gardner writes in Healing the Wounded Heart,

"To those of you who have lived on the edge of camp, in the outer cold away from the fire, God has brought the fire to you."

May we never forget that the only One we can count on for friendship will never count us out. These days, I am putting all my hope in Him. Trusting the One who never unfriends.

This post is part of my Word of the Year, "Count". Come count with me.

The Sheep-Counting God

Monday, August 18, 2014

{Elmer A. Humphrey}

When I think of sheep I think of my great grandfather, Elmer. I never knew him, but I have heard the stories. A man of Welsh descent that knew about sheep. He could shear 100 head of them in a day with hand clippers. Unreal. One of his descendant went on to compete in sheep shearing (yes, there are international competions in cutting wool). But the count was far higher than 100...my cousin could shear 333 in a day with electric clippers.

I wonder back then how my great grandfather kept count of those 100 sheep. Surely, his mind must have wandered as he cut the wool from another bleating animal, but somehow he kept track. Sheep counting has been around for a long time. For most, it is in an effort to sleep. For some, it is their livelihood. For One, it is His love.

God counts sheep.

3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

Luke 15:3-7

We are so important to Him that He counts us, and even when He has the 99 safe and sound, He misses that one. We matter to Him. He will search deep and wide for us. Pursue us. Go after us with His love.

{Elmer, on the right, 1907}

We, His sheep, count to Him.

My Word of the Year for 2014 is "Count". Come count with me.

Count it as a Loss

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Eighteen months of loss. Losing a church family. My great aunt. My ability to trust others. My support network. Friendships. The grieving has been hard. The recovery a process rivaling the speed of a turtle. It has been what a friend calls the "Twilight Zone", my new normal.

We all hate loss. In fact, we live our lives fighting it. It's called self-protection. Our schemes for insulating ourselves from loss range from great ideas to downright evil. We buy insurance plans. We study a little more to ensure that grade. We people please so we will be loved. We refuse to repent so we won't lose our pride. We lie. We strategize. We slander others to make ourselves look good. We hurt others in an effort to come out the winner...not the loser.

Eighteen months of loss and I have finally come to realize my losses are not what count. Christ does. Paul knew loss. A man of standing. A Hebrew of Hebrews that threw it all away for the sake of Christ. His example calls us to count all things as loss...garbage, so that we may gain Christ. {Philippians 3:7-11} What I had failed to realize these past months was that God was calling me to what counts. While the losses have been devastating God knew that all I really need is Him. Nothing else matters. The losses are there to make more room for Who really counts.

This year my Word of the Year is Count. Come count with me.

A God that Doesn't Count

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

According to Romans, God is not in the business of working on His math skills. He is God after all, right? Who needs to practice math when you invented it? He is the God that doesn't count...

I would rather have God as my judge than any other person. I know. It sounds crazy. A Perfect Person in judgment over an imperfect one sounds like a raw deal. There is no way you could measure up in a situation like that. Perfect always has the advantage. The problem with a judge in human form? That judge isn't perfect either! For many years I experienced the lack of grace from others. Condemning words. Hateful looks. Frankly, it hurt. BAD. But now I realize what God was up to. He was teaching me about His grace. He was teaching me to crave Him as judge and jury because unlike people He doesn't keep a record of wrongs. He doesn't judge us even when He knows our hearts unlike a human being who judges the hearts they can't see.

We have a God that doesn't count. He doesn't count our sins against us. He knows our complete heart. He knows our weaknesses. He knows how we struggle. And He puts that aside to dole out grace. Do we deserve it? Hardly. Can we earn it? No. He loves us "as is" as He moves us along to become what we should be.

Have you totally messed up? Take it to Him. You'll find He isn't in the counting business. His economy is based on grace. Something we can't earn and don't deserve. Something we crave. Something He is more than willing to give.

My Word of the Year is COUNT. Come count with me.

Love Counts

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Galatians 5:6

Loving can be a scary thing, because you are bound to get hurt. It takes a whole lot of faith in a God that you are convinced is out for your good to love others. Jesus did. It was in the washing of feet that we get to see Him loving His disciples knowing full well what they would do in a few hours. That is where the faith comes in. Faith to love because you know God loves you no matter what you may suffer at the hands of another.

The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. John 13:2-5

Jesus knew what was going to happen. He knew that in a few hours Judas would betray Him. Yet, He knew something more...that He had come from God and was returning to Him. When we know that God has our back and that we go back to Him we can love others. When we are sure of Who is behind us we can face the person in front of us. Because all that really counts...all that really matters is to love God and others. But you need a little faith to do that. Faith in a Father.

We can't love others, whether they be friends or enemies, without a firm faith in who God is. You can face a betrayer because you have a Father waiting in the wings to receive you. This past year I have pondered two questions, "Would I have done what Jesus did?" Love my betrayer...if I had known what was coming. Sadly, I would have to say "no". I am not Jesus. Not. Even. Close. And the second question...was it worth it? Worth it to love those that would turn on me? At first, I would have told you "no". But that would be pain talking. Yes, it was worth it. Every bit of it. It was worth it to love those that when it came to the end wouldn't love me back. Because it is love that counts. Love is all that matters. Not being loved {we already have that in Christ to the full}, but loving God and others that really counts.

Love counts no matter what happens in the end. Ask the Man with the towel wrapped around His waist. It was worth it...every bit of it!

This year my Word of the Year is count. Come count with me!

Who Counts More?

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

It never really was about me. I would have loved to keep it that way. I started out that way. We all did. Babies. Our center of our universe? Ourselves. We thought we were the world. We were the only thing that mattered. Funny, we may be forty or fifty, and we still act like the world revolves around us. We have a hard time doing otherwise.

John was losing. Losing his clout. Losing his followers. Another man had taken up the mantle and was now baptizing as John did. John's followers were indignant. How dare this man start baptizing...isn't John the one that started it all?! He is named John the Baptist for a reason! Yet, it was slipping. John had competition. His response comes as a shock...one of a man that knows that he isn't the center of anything. Not the center of Jesus' ministry. Not the center for all baptisms. Not the center of the universe.

"A person can receive only what is given them from heaven." -John 3:27

John's ministry and his influence would only last but a moment. He only had this influence because it had been given to him.

"He must increase, but I must decrease." -John 3:30

John realized that the best way to count is when you don't. We must decrease. We must not count ourselves as the center because we never were. He must increase. God is the one that counts. God was at the center of what John and the other baptizers were doing. It never really was about John. And yet, John will never be forgotten throughout history. His story counts. John's ministry of leading the way for Christ counts simply because John got out of the way.

Can we do the same? Can we decrease when every fiber of our being screams for control and recognition? Can we give up the center of the universe that we really never possessed to start out with? Can He become bigger in our lives as we become smaller?

Because the best way to count is when you don't count yourself as the center.

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