Jana Spicka

Pot Full of Promises

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It was a really stunning moment. I was considering lots of decisions that needed to be made. I felt like my back was against the wall and I had to choose: would I react out of fear or faith? Fear would have me grasp at straws, trying to cover my bases. Faith would have me walk in boldness, simply trusting God to provide.

My answer came through a three-way conversation.

Charis asked me, “Is there really a pot at the end of the rainbow?”

“Nope,” I said.

“Why do people say that, then?” Charis questioned.

Instead of focusing on the legend, I had her retell the story of the first rainbow. We talked about Noah and the rain and the bow in the  sky.

“Why did God give Noah the rainbow?” I asked her. 

“Because it showed God’s promise that He would never flood the whole earth again. The rainbow is a sign of promise. So why would people look for gold?” Charis asked.

And my mouth said out loud what only God could have spoken: “Because people would rather have a pot of gold than God’s promises.”

Did you hear that? the Spirit prodded.

“Yes, Lord. I do that. I want a pot of gold instead of Your promises. Forgive me. Instead I choose Your love, Your promises. I choose You.”

What are you working for? Believing in? Depending on?

Take a Deep Drink of God

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No matter what I do to store up my intimacy with God – beach trips, revelations, journalling – my heart gets depleted. It is much like when I stockpile my pantry. Eventually all the food is consumed. It is the same with my “moments” with the Lord. Eventually the demands and needs of the day consume my warm God thoughts, my cups of His love, my bins full of truth.

But neither are futile.

This is why we must come again and again to the Table of God. You see His brilliance in the depletion because it is not the assurance of eating He desires for us, but the assurance of our hunger. He is glad when we hunger and thirst after Him. For then He gets to satisfy us just as He promised.

Take a long,  long drink of this song. It will slake your thirst. At least for today. Smile.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” Matthew 5:6

Divine Romance
The fullness of Your grace is here with me
The richness of Your beauty’s all I see
The brightness of Your glory has arrived
In Your presence God, I’m completely satisfied

For You I sing I dance
Rejoice in this divine romance
Lift my heart and my hands
To show my love, to show my love

A deep deep flood, an Ocean flows from You
Of deep deep love, yeah it’s filling up the room
Your innocent blood, has washed my guilty life
In Your presence God I’m completely satisfied

by Phil Wickham

Being Still or Doing Nothing?

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“Be still and know that I AM God.” Psalm 46:10

Be. Know. I AM.

These are active verbs, especially when God Almighty is in the equation.  It came fresh to me yesterday when I was watching a scene from the new Karate Kid movie.

The student, Dre, asks Mr. Han, the master, when he would be taught all the moves so “he could control other people.” 

The master aptly replied, “The only person you need to learn to control is yourself.” 

Ouch. Let that one soak in a minute. Think about how much time you try to convince, cajole, manipulate, or arrange others for your benefit. Instead, consider how pressing into control yourself, your attitudes, your actions, and your beliefs could impact others for good.

They continue on in their teaching and Mr. Han attempted to explain the power of being still in your heart and in your mind.

Incredulous, the 12-year-old student balked, “You want me to beat those other guys by Doing NOTHING?!!”

Mr. Han looked at his student intently and said,” Being still and doing nothing are two totally different things.”

Add in the God factor to this statement, and you have a profound truth. Being still and knowing that GOD is at work  is different from you doing nothing but whining, quitting, and coping.  Being still and knowing God is for you generates a superpower hope and confidence while doing nothing only exposes your own weakness and inadequacies.

Being still and knowing, experiencing, believing, embracing, leaning on the Great I AM is a life changing point of origin.

Doing nothing is, well, full of Nothing. No God. No hope. No life.

Get busy being still. It will change everything about your Life.

Does Jesus Matter in Life?

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Does it really make any difference if we are Christians when we are facing real life circumstances?

I wonder if the average Christian truly has any expectation that the presence of God will actually impact the situations he or she is living through. And I also wonder, do we lack expectation because we lack faith?

Right now in my circle of life, there are all kinds of car issues. Our old van is more and more refusing to go into reverse. Laura’s transmission gave up the ghost all together. Shimmi just got hit with huge auto repair bills. On top of these needs I have loved ones facing foreclosure, facing medical debt collectors, and using roofing loans to pay for groceries.

Does an eternal Jesus matter in these concrete issues?

My mind goes to the Narnia stories by C.S. Lewis. Lucy was the first of four children to experience the all together Other Reality of Narnia that was far more real than their everyday England. And over and over people would doubt, malign or question the reality of Aslan, the great Lion who was the True King of Narnia. And over and over, Lucy looked for Aslan. She asked for Aslan. She hoped for Aslan.

And over and over, Aslan showed up in the most surprising ways. Unpredictable yet unchanging. I am learning to believe that if you never have need of a god, you are doomed indeed. It is in those “God I am hopeless unless You show up on my account” moments that we see we need a God, and we are not God. I think this is a good thing. And God is happy to be God for us. I think this is the best thing.

In one Nania scene when all seems lost, Aslan remarkably shows up, to which Lucy remarks, “You came!”

“Of course I came. Did you question that I would, child?” Aslan asks.

Lord give us Lucy hearts. Teach us to look for You in the hardest of moments with hearts of faith. And teach us to wait expectantly for Your appearing in our hard places.

“You surround them with your favor as with a shield.” Psalm 5:12

Leaning on Her Lover

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Doing anything creative is a blur of emotions. You begin with hesitation, hope and unknowns. You get going and you love it, hate it, and hope for it to be more. All at the same time.  And when you push your chair back, assess and grade your work, sometimes it a tricky moment.

What was the greater work, the outcome or the process?

When I was writing the music for the Real.Life. worship cd, it happened in stages. First was the simple time in prayer when I tried to get the groan in my spirit to take shape in the form of letters on paper.  Weeks later, Chuck and I spent the late night seasons knocking around words and guitar chords.  Try to picture this.  He is standing up just jamming on his guitar looking out the window. I am sitting on the bed reading through pages of lyrics. And tucked in the pile is this gathering of words that suddenly start spilling out of my mouth in song.

It was as if the Spirit was painting a beautiful picture, grabbing color from Chuck, color from me, then blending, splashing and dabbing. When we stopped, we just sat there is silence. Three way intimacy.

The funny thing is, I started not to send the recording to the producer. I told Chuck this is more of a “moment” that a song. But I sent it anyway. Then the Spirit pulled in Chris’ colors and gifts and the song became an even more brilliant picture.

Last night the Artist signed His name at the bottom of the painting. The final touch. Chuck listened to the rough cut and his comment took my breath away and burned in my spirit.

“Jana this is just like the scripture out of Song of Songs. ‘Who is this coming up out of the desert, leaning on her lover?'”

Read the words as you listen to this as yet unpolished recording. And hear that the whole point is to let Him do what only He can do through me, through you, through us. He is our life and He loves it when we lean on Him.

Depend Unmixed

Depend on You
So glad to depend on you
So glad to lean on you
Your strong arms
So glad to see my need for you
Glad to know you made me that way

Be my life Be my life  O God
So glad to lean on you
Be my life Be my life  O God
So glad to lean on you

So glad to depend on you
So glad to lean on you
Your strong arms
So glad to see my need for you
Glad to see it was your plan all along

Be my life Be my life  O God
So glad to lean on you
Be my life Be my life  O God
So glad I can lean on you

Bridge:
Losing the scrutiny
It’s all about you and not me
Losing the need to control
The illusion is gone
I can rest in your arms

(Editor’s note: The Real.Life. worship CD will be available for purchase at Unhindered 2.0, February 12, 2011.)

Playing in the Sand

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I do it a lot. Act like God is not with me. I get myself in wads and then whine, complain, quit or cope. Instead of simply turning to Them and asking for truth, or help, or just understanding.

I don’t simply stop very often.

But yesterday I did.  The wind was blowing fierce on the beach and I sat beside a storage shed to get some shelter. As I was sitting there, I started running my fingers through the white, sugar-like sand.  I realized, though, I was still running the autopilot list in my head of stuff to process, fix and resolve.

It was a paradox. Child-like playing in the sand. Grown up stressing in my head. And the Lord asked me, “Write in the sand.”

“What should I write?”  I asked.

“How about all that stuff in your head?” (Yes of course He already knows it.) So I wrote out a short list of the needs I had. 

“Great. I got all that. Now wipe that away.”

One movement of my hand, it was erased.

“Now, do it again.”

This went on for several lists. Physical needs, material needs. People I was praying for, events coming up. Each time, the reassurance came that He had this taken care of, each time came the instruction to wipe it away.

Then there was a quiet calm. As I sat there for a few minutes and JUST played in the sand, two powerful things happened. One was a simple reflection. Wonder what I wrote last year? He had indeed wiped all those things away. He had over time resolved, provided, and advanced each the issues that pressured me last year. Would this year be any different?

The second thing was a very, very real awareness of His presence. As I played, the wind lifted and shifted the sand smoothing and scattering my doodles. I looked to my right, and the wind was lifting and shifting other little mounds of sand.

“I like playing in the sand too.”

Sometimes you have to stop the noise to hear the roar of the ocean. Sometimes you have to sit and play to remember that you are His child. Sometimes you have to give stuff to Him and let Him blow away all the distractions and just be with Him.

Oh to sit in the delight of the One who thinks of us, more than the grains of the sand.

How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
   How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
   they would outnumber the grains of sand—
   when I awake, I am still with you.
Psalm 139:17-18

Moving Forward

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Seems the Holy Days can be hard on our hearts.  I find myself surrounded by powerhouse people who have been brought to their knees by sin, sickness, and struggle. It has been a whirlwind of emotions. And I have been asking the Lord to give me insight, not only to know how to pray in power for them, but to learn from their stories, their reactions, their deep, deep aches.

And I repeat again something that my friend and spiritual teacher, John Dee, taught me, “Go mainly, mostly to Jesus.”

We don’t give in to the flesh. It betrays us with destructive deceptions.
We don’t give in to idolotry. Those man-made gods have no breath or healing or comfort.
We don’t give in to running away. Those helpless days are past.

We can’t go back to Egypt. We were slaves there.
No, we must press deeper into the desert. Our God has led us here, and He will provide for us here. He will make Himself known as the great I AM. As I have been praying for God’s people to be lifted up, the song “Moving Forward” came to my spirit. It makes me weep every time. He makes all things new. All things. He makes them new.

No, we cannot go back.  Only forward into more of Him.
May God bless your journey with “all power in His hands as He gives a second chance.”

Moving Forward
by Israel Houghton

What a moment
You have brought me to
Such a freedom I have found in You
You’re the Healer
Who makes all things new
Yeah yeah yeah

~Bridge~

I’m not going back
I’m moving ahead
Here to declare to You
My past is over in You
All things are made new
Surrendered my life to Christ
I’m moving, moving forward

(2nd verse)

You have risen
With all power in Your hands
You have given me
A second chance

Hallelujah hallelujah
Yeah, yeah, yeah

(back to bridge)

~Chorus~

You make all things new
Yes
You make all things new
And I will follow You
Forward

It Leads Only to Evil

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Talk about a wake up call. I was reading Psalm 37 and although I have read this Psalm a hundred times, I saw a line I had never seen. But first a little background. I was stressed out, striving and sick about it. I needed help and wanted answers, NOW!  Guess what? God doesn’t always have “NOW” on His clock, so I was really upset. I went to the scripture for comfort, for perspective. And sure enough Psalm 37 delivered both.

 “Trust in the Lord and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
Delight yourself in the Lord
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him and he will do this:
He will make your righteousness
shine like the dawn
the justice of your cause like
the noonday  sun.

So rich is the word of God. Trust, delight, commit, shine. He will do this. The next passage is about being still and waiting patiently for Him. Yes, it was a comfort. It was a God perspective that I needed.

But then came the cold water splashing in my face. “Do not fret — it leads only to evil.”

Just look at those words. Say them out loud. Do not fret. It LEADS only to evil. It leads ONLY to evil. It leads only to EVIL.  I have never considered it before, but it’s true. Fretting leads to gossip, manipulation, deception, stealing, striving, quitting, settling, doubting, coping, addiction, etc.

This is not what God wants for us. Honestly it is not what we want for us but it is what our minds lead us to if we are not centered on trusting God. He promises us rest and hope, “For the Lord upholds him with His hand.”

Focus on the face of God and not on the circumstances. Allow yourself to feel His hands holding you instead of wringing your own.  Be mindful of your mind. Ask the Lord to keep you.

The Blinding Snow

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When we were talking about how snow reminds us of the Character of God, The Why’s of Snow, it bothered me that snow is freezing and icy. I don’t think of God as cold and freezing at all. So I asked the Spirit to make some sense of this for me. The word came: “Snow is blinding.”

Blinding? Then I got a picture of walking down the beach and how the sun on white sand is also blinding. I heard this faint whisper that Glory is blinding. God’s glory is so amazing, so breathtaking it is hard for us to take it all in. Our earthly eyes can hardly adjust to the eternal brightness. Read this passage from Revelation talking about Jesus. The All Glorious One. No longer the babe in swaddling clothes but the Warrior King coming for His Bride.  And perhaps the next time you shield your eyes, from snow or sand or sun, think Glory. Glory coming for you. Amen and Amen.

“I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me.

And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone “like a son of man,” dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest.

The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.

His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.

In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword.

His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

– Revelation 1:12-16

The Why’s of Snow

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We didn’t go to church yesterday because of the snow. We did however have an amazing conversation with the girls about God and snow. I read Psalm 51 aloud and we talked about how He washes us whiter than snow. You probably already know this verse, but when you see your front yard being transformed before your very eyes, it is good to dwell on the reality. This is how God sees us — being transformed into a wonderland.

Here are a few other nuggets for your spirit.
Snow is a visible representation of God’s character.
1) It is unpredictable. Despite the best efforts of weathermen and preachers, snow and God can not be pinpointed. He comes and goes at his own bidding. So does the snow. We can only prepare, watch and wait.

2) The snow is unstoppable. No one can make it stop.  Once it begins, we must adjust our lives around snow, not the other other way around. It is the same with God. Nothing thwarts his plans. so our plans come to a screeching halt when they collide with his or we learn to adapt to His timing.  He will have his way. The lesson here is how we react to snow and God changing our courses.  We can grumble or we can enjoy the detour.

3) Snow is fun. Now why did God do that, make snow so fun, unless He is also very fun loving? The things in nature that cause us to squeal with delight are invitations to see the God of delight. He made those on purpose for us to enjoy, and for us to see glimpses of what he is like. Think about it. Sliding down the icy hills screaming? That was His idea.

I stood inside and watched my kids play outside. Their laughter, their red cheeks and frosty breaths made me wonder what is was like to be God watching His kids play?  Do you think he smiles and flinches like I did? Snow is yet another amazing gift from our Giving God. And despite the inconvenience and interruption, despite the threat and risk, make sure you take time to just say thank you. He really is a fun loving character.

9 However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—

10But  these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

1 Corinthians 2:9-10