Blakeyblog

I’ve just returned from an awesome weekend at our church’s annual Women’s Retreat. A few hundred women all gathered at a hot springs resort for a time of challenge and refreshment from God’s Word.

One of my favorite things about this retreat is that it was built entirely around the teaching of God’s Word. The other favorite thing was that we didn’t have a teacher come for the weekend from outside our church. Our senior pastor’s wife, Carlynn and the Director of Women’s Ministries, Stephanie both delivered God’s Word powerfully straight to our hearts.

The resort was a peaceful place with natural hot springs all around the property and a big pond with swans and ducks, a coffee shop and a bookstore…a great little getaway! Other women’s retreats I’ve attended are all about relaxing and fellowship and then we hear a speaker a couple of times which, in my experience can be more entertainment than spiritual motivation. But this weekend was a great mixture of both rest and fellowship with hard core challenges to be obedient to God’s Word.

The theme of the weekend was “Radically Different: Living by God’s Counter-Cultural Compass” with teaching segments including:

• Living Under New Management
  Is Jesus Lord in our lives?
  Are we slaves to sin, or slaves to righteousness?
• Living With a New Set of Priorities
  Choosing to be known for obedience to God’s Word,
  trusting Him to make all things right.
• Living With a New Level of Sacrifice
  Being willing to risk everything to follow Christ,
  especially by putting other above ourselves.
• Living With a New Perspective
  God is able to use all things for His glory.
  Never rebel against His way for our lives.

All of the teaching was rich and profitable but the most impactful for me was Carlynn’s message–Living with a New Level of Sacrifice. One of her points was something Paul says: Be willing to spend and be expended.

So I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well.

2 Corinthians 12:15

This hit me powerfully because I really thought about all that Paul gave up–all of his time, his status and reputation, money and any emotional attachments. But it didn’t stop there because we know from 2 Corinthians 11 that he suffered immensely. And yet he continues to give sacrificially, not begrudgingly but gladly. Wow!

Paul’s whole mindset is completely others-oriented but so often I act like time and possessions are my own and I can do with it what I want. Am I willing to sacrifice like this for my church family? I definitely saw that I need to value and be willing to give everything for the spiritual good of others and was really challenged by how Carlynn encouraged us to “Say ‘no’ to self and ‘yes’ to Jesus every time.” If we follow Him like this we will stand out as radically different in this world!

“An idol can be anything. It may even be a good thing. But if we want it so badly that we sin if we don’t get it or sin to attain it, then we are worshiping an idol rather than Christ.”

-A quote from Lou Priolo, The Excellent Wife, p. 59

We are worshiping something or someone all the time. What we worship is what we talk about, spend time and money on and seek after. There is a struggle in our hearts between the desires we have and pure devotion to Christ. When we allow idols into our hearts God will do what He must to break us from them because He deserves all of our hearts.

Our idols may seem to be subtle and we can be easily deceived by them. I remember hearing the word “idol” when I was around 10 years old and I just had the image of a little statue or totem pole in my mind. But these are not the false gods we are usually worshiping. In chapter 7 of The Excellent Wife, Martha Peace gives a list of common idols that wives may have their hearts set on–

-Good health
-Physical appearance
-Having a Christian marriage
-Being treated fairly
-Having a hurt free/pain free life
-Worldly pleasures (drugs, alcohol, sex)
-A child or children
-Another person (man or woman)
-A material thing
-An ideal (“pro-life movement,” “peace movement”)
-Money
-Success
-Other’s approval
-Being in control
-Having your “needs” met

The Excellent Wife, p. 60-61

I long to have deep intimate fellowship with Christ and pure devotion to Him, but as I look through this list I can pinpoint areas that I struggle with. It is a good practice to regularly ask God to show you your idols. Last year I started doing this in my quiet times. I wrote out Psalm 139:23-24 on a card and put it in my prayer journal. I’ve really started to see my idols for what they are and that the right response is casting off those idols and clinging to Christ. This is so spiritually refreshing to be able to confess those things and have forgiveness and is also motivating for holiness because I know that God wants me to be pure in my devotion to Him.

As long as things are going well in the areas you have your heart set on, you will feel all right. When they do not turn out as you may desire, frustration and perhaps anxiety begin to build even to the point of desperation…God also frustrates your idol worship because He wants your pure devotion to Him (Matthew 22:37-38).

The Excellent Wife, p.61

Idols are things all of us, not just wives, struggle with. I hope you will join me in praying Psalm 139:23-24 with a readiness to change any desires that are hindering pure devotion to Him.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Psalm 139:23-24

I’m back! I didn’t actually go anywhere and had no intention of taking a 2-week blog break without notice, I guess things have just been a little crazy in the Blakey home the last two weeks…

At the beginning of my spontaneous hiatus my in-laws moved back to Texas. They had been working for the last two years at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley only an hour and a half away from us. We enjoyed seeing them at least once a month. So it is a change that they are so far away now, but we are thrilled for them to be shepherding the flock of Believer’s Fellowship in San Antonio now.

I’m so glad that Fall is here! The weather is cooling down and the Disneyland crowds are diminished. We went with Bobby’s parents two weeks ago and twice this week! Tyler’s new favorite rides are the tea cups and the Dumbo ride. Today my sister, Alicia and I took the kids there for the express purpose of going on the Finding Nemo submarine ride. In the summer when this attraction opened the wait was 4 hours, but today it was about 45. All summer we said we would wait till October, so today was the day! Alicia is due in just a couple of weeks so I’m “on call” to go take care of her kids when she goes into labor, which may be soon after hours of walking around Disneyland!

Last week I had the opportunity to teach from 1 Peter 1:6-9 for our Women’s Bible Study.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Peter speaks a profound message of joy in trials. This is something most would consider a contradiction, but for the Christian, these two are meant to go hand-in-hand. I’m concerned at how the Christian community seems to be confused about this. Just walk into any Christian bookstore and you will be bombarded with the idea that the Christian life is easy and makes you happy.

God’s Word is clear in saying that following Christ will be difficult. We will face trials, opposition and pain, but in Him we can have joy that overrides and is unhindered by anything and everything that we face.This joy isn’t like happiness, based on what is happening, instead it is from an internal rest in Christ.

The points from my passage were that our joy can be unhindered as we

• Rejoice in our incredible salvation (v. 6a)
  
• Rejoice in a proven faith (v. 6b-7)
  
• Rejoice in personal fellowship with Christ. (v. 8-9)

If what we value is Christ we can have a joy that is unstoppable. Joy and faith that perseveres in trials is an important testimony that the world needs to see.