Vital Ingredients

When I buy vitamins, I read the labels carefully. Due to some weird lab results, I have to watch out for one a days that contain potassium. 

The other day, I found myself reading labels in the aisle at CVS. I'm a woman. Always have been. Always will be. So needless to say, I buy women's vitamins. Without fail, every bottle stressed the importance of three things that the company considered vital ingredients for my health as a woman. Man friends....you share one out of the three, but I will pass on the testosterone, thank you very much! 

My distinctly female vitamins contain ingredients to promote and support
  

heart health, bone health, and memory. 

Aren't those the very same vital ingredients that I need to promote and support my spiritual health? Let's look at them in backward order.

Memory is one of the most important things to keep sharp when we're fighting a spiritual battle. Each and every one of us is going through something today. If you're not, trust me, you will be facing a challenge, a trial, or a circumstance soon. It's life on an imperfect planet Earth. It's tough. It's not always fair. Sometimes the pain of it all is excruciating. One of the most successful weapons you and I have against despair over our situations, is remembering what God has done for us in the past. 

When David was greatly distressed, he "encouraged himself in the Lord." (1 Samuel 30:6 KJV) Encouraging oneself is remembering, recalling, having memory of past deliverance, provision, and help, from the One Who calls Himself, "an ever-present help in time of trouble." (Psalm 46:1) Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8) The same God who brought you out before, will bring you out again. Sit a spell and call to remembrance what God has done for you thus far.

 "Thus far has the Lord helped us." (1 Samuel 7: 12) 

      

Bones surround you. Lifeless bones of situations and relationships and life. When you look around, all may seem lost. You may seem lost. Have you ever been just sick and tired of being sick and tired? I've been there friend, when I hear you say, "I'm just so tired." 

Tired of. Tired from. Nothing left to give. Dry.

Can these bones live?

"Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! I will make breath enter you , and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord." (Ezekiel 37: 4-6) 

Be assured today, sweet one, that nothing is utterly dead until God says it's utterly dead. Nothing is hopeless or beyond repair. You may be set in the middle of a deep valley today, but if God has set you there, like He did Ezekiel, His Spirit is right there with you. (Psalm 23: 4)  He is asking you the same question. "Can these bones live?"  He wants to hear what you think. He wants to test your faith. He wants to know if you believe Him. 

"O Sovereign Lord, you alone know."  

You alone. 

God alone.

The Heart is literally the heart of the whole matter. Girlfriend, in a world that is bombarding you with the compulsion to be perfect, it's no wonder you're exhausted. All around us is the pressure to be the perfect wife, the perfect mom, the perfect employee who brings home the bacon, and fries it up in a pan. Let's not forget the perfect face, the perfect body, the zillions of programs and exercises and guidelines and strategies to do it all, be it all, look all that, and collapse in our beds and do it all again tomorrow.  

Can I assure you today that there is only One Who is perfect? The Lord Jesus Christ. 

And you have His heart. He loves you with His whole heart. He loves you so much that He promises to give you a new heart...a heart like His. He's not concerned with your earthly perfection. "He knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust." (Psalm 103: 14) How freeing is that?

The standards of God are nothing like the demands you are feeling from the world around you. The pressure's off because...

"The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." 

(1 Samuel 16: 7)

I want to close this out but I don't quite know how. I wish we were sitting across from one another, sharing an iced Mocha. Women are hurting terribly. We're under attack from an enemy who wants no less than our destruction. I think it's because we are the nurturers, the caregivers, and the force behind the generation after us. We can beat him. We don't have to let him destroy us, or the ones we love. We have been put here, today, in this place, for such a time as this, and we can stop the madness, in Jesus' name, and with His Holy Spirit's power.

Our lives and the lives of our precious loved ones depend on it.