Archives for December 2012

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

When I wrote this, my husband was still in Nigeria, and I found I had a free evening and decided to catch the new James Bond film, Skyfall. Truthfully, I have never been a James Bond fan—the last versions seemed supremely silly to be—but I will admit, I love the craggy-faced Daniel Craig in all his acting iterations.

So I popped in for an early afternoon show (was surprised to receive a senior discount) and came away thinking some about the allusions to growing old that themed their way through the whole filmic experience.

Because the theatre is just next to the largest resale chain that in our area is taking over big-box stores that are consolidating and leaving empty buildings behind them, I thought I would just pop in. There are a few things I was looking for—and a lot of things I’ve forgotten that I am looking for, which is the substance of this blog.

Savers, the name of the new resale chain, is clean, well-organized with sections clearly labeled for the shopper. In addition to a great black-and-red wool coat from with a terrific label, a new pair of leather wedge-heeled boots, and some recycled sweaters for our church’s mission project, I also found 16 soup bowls with a blue lattice edge and a thin rim of gold. I am short of soup and salad bowls and really into mixing and matching, so I swooped these up (four for $2, totaling $8 in all). I thought they would look good with the cobalt-blue glass dishes I use in the summer, but then if I didn’t like them, I was only out eight bucks.

Early the next morning, as I was emptying the car of last night’s purchases, I stuck all the soup bowls in the dishwasher and sat down with my prayer journal and a cup of tea to list and thank God for the many, many gifts I find in secondhand stores. It is almost laughable. I’ll think, I need to find such-and-such, walk into a nearby shop, and there, as though someone knew I was coming, will be the very thing I needed.

However, as I was sitting and praying, I was reminded of the fact that I had never collected soup bowls to go with my wedding Lenox china. I have 12 dinner plates, 12 salad plates and eight coffee cups, but the china is so expensive, I’ve never been able to add to it. A plain Lenox-cream, I just mix and match whatever I think will go. Suddenly it hit me that these bowls might be exactly what I needed to go with that set.

I grabbed a bowl, hot from the dishwasher’s drying cycle, took up a Lenox dinner plate and lo and behold, the two were gorgeous together!

Now, I know that God does not forget (unless He chooses to wipe something from His memory the way Scripture suggests). I, however, do forget. I forgot I needed bowls and have made do with glass salad dishes for those cold summer soups or for those fall pumpkin-and-butternut-squash recipes.

These are the times I laugh. Why would I think that God delights to give me what I can afford ($8) when I have forgotten that I had been looking for something myself?

Strangely enough. He does. Have I got a surprise for you, He seems to say.

So I lift my heart in thanks for these simple things—sixteen used soup bowls for $8 that beautifully contrasts with my wedding china that is so expensive, I can’t afford to add to it any more. My big God contends with the details of my life in ways I too often forget or neglect. Thank you, dear and loving Heavenly Father.

I spy God!

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Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

Robert Emmons, an author and psychology professor at University of California Davis, wrote the book Thanks! How the Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier. Emmons insists there is more to cultivating a lifestyle of gratitude that just the power of positive thinking. “Gratitude,” he writes “is literally one of the few things that can measurably improve peoples’ lives.”

Emmons talks about research he conducted in 2007 that asked a group of organ-transplant patients to keep a daily journal. Part of the group recorded what they were grateful for; the other control group just listed the daily events of their recovery. The group that regularly listed their thanks scored significantly higher on measures of both physical and mental health.

This reminds me: Years ago I was convicted not to use my prayer journal as a record for only prayer requests, and I went on a six-month discipline where I only recorded thanks. I thanked God for everything—for blue skies and hard days, for my children when they were sweet and when they were cranky, for the small and large gifts of the days, for my husband when I loved him and also when he aggravated me. I thanked God for the things I took for granted—a roof over our heads, enough money to buy groceries, warm clothes and laughter in the family.

This exercise totally reconstructed my frame of living and pointed me in the direction of becoming a healthier and happier woman. It strikes me, however, that I could use a refresher course. So I’m going to take the month of December and just live in gratitude and appreciation. I’ll put a parenthesis in the normal architecture of my prayer journal work and give to God the exclusive gift of my thanksgiving.

Who knows what this will work in me at this stage of my life—I may even become a radiant old lady! According to Emmons, grateful people “feel more alert, alive, interested, enthusiastic,” and are also “less likely to experience envy, anger, resentment, regret and other unpleasant states that produce stress.”

Yep. I can use a dose of that medicine.

I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

This is an unusual year in that Advent does not follow hard on the heels of the Thanksgiving celebration. Usually the first week of Advent is the immediate weekend after Thanksgiving Thursday, giving us little time to absorb the thoughts about gratitude before we are breathlessly pushed along into efforts to resist the spirit of an aggressive consumer Christmas season.

Last week, I was asked to preach on the power of words, particularly the word “thank you” and its accompanying lifestyle of appreciation and gratitude.

So I have had an usually long stretch to consider the meaning of this huge scriptural concept. As usual, sermon preparation has done the most for me—the messenger.

For that unusual week on our calendar—the week before Advent began on December 2—let me take you along as I share some of my thoughts.

One of the recommendations of those in the scientific community who have been studying the impact of healthy choices (as opposed to only researching abnormal or unhealthy psychology and social environments) has been the remarkable discovery that the impact of many kinds of positive emotional attitudes actually can be measured in controlled study environments.

Gratitude, or a lifestyle of appreciation, comes right out on top in its impact. One of the discoveries of Dr. Dan Baker, Director of Behavioral Medicine at the National Center for Preventive and Stress Medicine, revealed in his book What Happy People Know, is this fact: “Your mind, when focused on appreciating, has an unparalleled power to trigger physical and emotional healing.”

If this is true—and I am convinced from the data as well as my own personal experience that it is true—then we need to be intentionally working on stretching and growing our capacity to be grateful (and to express that gratitude) to God and to the people around us.

Baker cites studies that show the brain cannot process both fear (one of mankind’s dominate negative emotions) and appreciation at the same time. He has developed the Appreciation Audit, which when practiced, is designed to crate a shield in the brain against fear, hate and anger. A fundamental form of the Audit is:

Reserve three to five minutes, preferably three times a day,
to think about something you appreciate.
Keep your mind focused until you feel the beauty of gratefulness rising.

Busyness often keeps me from deeply appreciating. I keep a section of my prayer journal for thanksgiving and I list my gratefulness daily, but “feeling the beauty of gratefulness rising”?—well, I may need to work on that a bit.

So I decided to set aside three to five minutes, preferably three times a day, during that unusual calendar week between the holiday and the beginning of Advent.

I’ll let you know what it did for me. You may want to consider experimenting with this as well. Let me know if you make any discoveries, won’t you?

I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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