By Judy Villanueva

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

“Crinkle, crinkle yittle star, how I wonder what you are…” I sang gently alongside my little grand-daughter as I rocked her to sleep. Her head rested on my shoulder and before long, I could feel her go limp in my arms.  I placed her in the crib, prayed a quiet prayer and stood a minute watching her surrender to sleep. In those sweet moments, I felt God tap me on the shoulder and draw me into awareness that, much like this

He watches over me wherever I am in my life.  He sees me as I come and as I go.  He sings alongside my songs and delights in knowing and loving me.

He may feel distant at times, but I only need look up to find His face!  He is always there, His eyes awaiting my notice.

Seeking the face of God as we walk through our day invites us to notice where He is speaking, correcting, or guiding.  It may seem vague, but it really is as simple as  returning to awareness that God is here.   It is easy to live immersed in activities, mentally disconnected from God, but anytime we agree to slow down soul-space opens up, and the potential for face-time!  How do we look at Jesus?  There are many ways including prayer, spiritual reading, listening to worship music, meditating on the Word and learning how to experience God’s presence in the life around us.

We live fully known by God, but if we want to see His face and desire to have His heart  formed in us, we must engage with Him.

I am always intrigued by the moments in Scripture that mention eye-to-eye encounters with Jesus. Like Jairus, who upon receiving word of his daughter’s death, looks up to find Jesus’ eyes on him with a command, “Do not be afraid. Just believe.”   Can you imagine what Jairus was thinking, “What shall I believe?  My daughter has just died!”

Whatever it was that Jairus saw as he stood facing Jesus grabbed him from the midst of his despair, set him on his feet, and led him to a resurrection!

“Talitha Koum! Little girl, wake up!” And, she did! Is this what happens when we face Jesus?  Do we notice Him looking at us over what crowds our lives and into our broken hearts?  Are we helped to hear His voice that shouts hope to our despair?  Are we emboldened to follow Him to places where our lives are restored and where we feel His gentle tap that reminds us He is with us?

“Lord, I want to see Your face. I want to remember You and live in Your presence more today than yesterday. Help me to engage with you, to slow down enough to hear you calling to me over, what is sometimes, a crowded life.  Thank You for the taps on my shoulder and the reassurance that you are with me. Amen.”

What about you?

What would be like to live a day looking at Jesus? How might it affect your thoughts? Your choices?

Have you experienced the face of God?  The sense of Him seeing and knowing you?

Does the pace of your life allow for slowing down?  Can you see Jesus over what crowds around you each day?

What habits help you connect to God?

God loves you and knows you.  He is with you always.  Look up!

Worship

By Judy Villanueva

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in You.  (St. Augustine)

My eyes opened and I peeked out from under sleepy eyelids to see what time it was…5:00am!  I should’ve gone back to sleep but all I could think of was hot, brown, yummy coffee with cream and sugar!  I had awakened to the prospect of sipping a mug of  “wake me up and make me happy” goodness, so drifting back to sleep was pretty unlikely.  As I sat in the dark waiting for the beep that would signal “the best part of waking up,”  I became acutely aware of a lacking in my hunger for God, or at least, a weakness of fervor compared to my morning passion for a cup of Joe.  Yuck.  I don’t want that to be true, but there it is…the whole, caffeinated truth of it.

How does the soul pant for God?  We have been made for Him and even if we do not believe He exists, our souls know better! 

There is a “sacred place” within us that longs for its Maker, remembers its true home, and yearns to be with God.

It is why, I believe, it matters to us that our lives have meaning.  It accounts for the angst we experience when we are silent, or agree to sit still.  In the spaces between moving around and being busy with this or that, we can feel our soul hunger for God.  This part of us doesn’t believe for a moment that we “just happened” after a big bang, but retains the precious truth of our origins.  Sadly, it is possible to ignore our soul and after a while, we can become impervious to its longing for God.  I’m not sure there is anything more tragic than that a soul should forget that it belongs to God.

The image of a deer panting for water is a vivid picture of focused desire, not unlike my morning quest for coffee.  “Wanting” so often is driven by habits and hungers, both real and imagined, so how do we tune into our soul’s desire for God?  How do we learn to sit patiently next to Him, when everything in us wants to squirm away and fill up with temporal things?

I want to learn to follow my soul’s yearning into God’s presence and hold myself there long enough to experience His embrace.

I want to drink in the Lord more fully and not get up until my soul overflows.  I need to slow myself down, linger in prayer, ponder God’s word,  and savor the joy of belonging to God. His company is what I want to anticipate when I open my eyes in the morning and He is what I want to fill up with each day.

“Lord, help me to pay attention to the hunger pangs of my soul and learn to want You, as I open my eyes in the morning.  Call my soul to come and teach me how to enjoy Your presence more fully.  Amen.”

What about you?

Did you pant for God today?

Are you aware and paying attention to your soul’s longing for God?

How do you bring your soul to God?

You have been made for God.  He is your home and place of rest.

Worship

By Judy Villanueva

It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

I watched my little grand daughter enter the swimming pool with a kind of excitement that spills out of children when they are enveloped in favorite things!  Her smile reached out from the water with a gentle power that seemed to float over and declare the blessed truth that “There is a God and He is fun!” Suddenly, I saw her expression change as her foot left the last step and she could no longer touch the bottom of the pool! I knew her water wings would hold her up but she did not believe this and began to panic. Her body stiffened and what was magical a minute ago was now frightening. “You’re ok,” I assured her, “Your wings will keep you safe. Stay calm. Breathe.” How fast the shift can be from faith to fear, joy to panic — from freedom to the prisons  that confine our hearts and dictate how we live and feel.

Where do you need some wiggle room? What are the places in your life where you feel stuck or confined? It might be an emotional pattern that leads to an outburst or shutdown. It might be a tight place where you find your heart narrowed or cut off from love. Has fear tightened its grip? Has despair closed in?  We can usually put our finger on it by considering the circumstances where we feel hemmed in and without much power to be what we wish — the place where we lack freedom in Christ.

Freedom to trust God, freedom to love, and freedom to act from grace rather than out of the pressured places of worry, fear, and anger.

In moments of truth, how do we find the internal space to NOT DO what we usually do and DO something better instead?  To be someone better, one moment at a time.

I love the story in John 18 where Jesus identifies himself to the soldiers, officials, chief priests, and pharisees who have come to arrest him. They ask, “Are you Jesus of Nazareth?” and when He declares, “I AM He”  they all draw back and fall to the ground!  The reality of Christ is powerful and it is in Him that we find our wiggle room!

The challenge is to notice what has come to arrest our freedom and then to pause and pray for His power and a little space to do and be something better!

I want to live OUT OF the reality of the great I AM, don’t you?  I want to stop in front of the tight places of my life and take a deep breath!  I want to confront confinement and speak truth to my heart. “There is a God and He is mighty!”  I want to trust that His wings will hold me up and give me the courage and power to live free.

“Lord, help me live the reality of the great “I AM”. Thank you for your commitment to my freedom!  Be my strength and courage and wiggle room in the tight places.  Amen.”

What about you?

Where do you need some wiggle room to live differently?

What are the places in your life where you feel stuck or confined?  Where you feel locked into one way of being?

Does fear or worry ever steal your freedom?

What might it be like to live out of the reality of the great “I AM”?

Worship

By Judy Villanueva

Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;  but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles;  they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.  (Isaiah 40)

We huffed and puffed up the last of three inclines that make up our regular workout and just as we crested the hill my husband pointed to something that called us to attention.  There above us was an eagle soaring effortlessly, catching thermals and being lifted up higher and higher until we could barely make out its form in the sky.  God seemed to be speaking to us through this majestic creature, encouraging us to hope beyond gravity and all the things that tether our faith to the ground.  Expending very little energy, the eagle road the thermals  to amazing heights and a view that stretched out for miles!  

A thermal is a column of rising air created when the sun warms the earth and forms an atmospheric updraft.  Don’t we all need a little updraft to help us soar above our lives and catch a broader view?   

There is something about flying that speaks of freedom, of rising above the constraints of our circumstances  — and our tired and weary places.

Without hope we are earthbound and cut off from sweet dreams and bright tomorrows.  “BUT,”  as Isaiah declares, “those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength;  they will soar on wings like eagles!  They will run and not grow weary.”  And, there it is!  Our thermal! 

God is the eternal, immortal, invisible — atmospheric updraft of the soul! 

His love warms our hearts and lifts up hope within us.  But how, we might ask, how do we catch and soar on Holy thermals?  

Hoping in the Lord involves experiencing His love and learning to discern His movements around us.  This happens whenever we dwell in His presence —

when we slow down, calm down, and put down all our doing and reach for God instead! 

We enter His embrace when we read His Word and listen.  We stretch out our wings as we meditate on what we read and let the Truth become our fuel for flight. We find renewed strength when we sing His praises and rejoice in His love.  

We soar as we spread out our faith and let the Holy Spirit lift us up into hope — hope eternal and unfailing, hope that rests in the heart of God

—a sacred place with a view that stretches out for miles — and the very best launch pad for flight!

“Father, I thank you that you are a steady and faithful place of hope and hoping.  Help me to discern your movements around me.  Lift up hope within me.   Amen.”   

What about you? 

Are you tired and weary?  Do you need some encouragement to hope beyond gravity?

Are you cultivating a habit of slowing and quieting with God’s word?  It is a helpful and fruitful way to read.

Are there things you need to put down so you can reach for God?

Are you experiencing God’s love and learning to discern His movements around you?

Worship

By Judy Villanueva

We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. (Hebrews 2:1)

But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. (Revelations 2:4)

Colorful umbrellas celebrated along the shoreline, each granting shade and place-marking the towels and coolers that awaited hundreds of sea loving swimmers.  To avoid confusion we were careful to take note of our specific picnic area before we ran out into the ocean to play. There’s nothing like the thrill of catching the perfect wave or gasping for air after a salt water tumble! When finally we exhausted ourselves, we placed our feet on the sandy shore and looked up expecting to find our bright yellow umbrella.  What we found instead was a sea of towels and beach chairs a football field away from where we had started!  The current was subtle and, lost in play, we never even noticed we had drifted.

Drifting is the kind of thing that often happens little by little.  One minute we are where we plan to be and the next, in a place we hardly recognize.  When we do finally look up and find ourselves it is with bewilderment that we ask, “How did I get here?” or “How did I become this person?” To drift is “to wander or move gradually away from a fixed course or point” and it happens one decision at a time… one thought, one attitude, one act.  It happens when we give ourselves permission to lose our temper “just this once” or set our tongue free to say whatever it wants. It happens when we wander over to an improper TV show, justify a lie, or look the other way when our hearts are unkind.

It happens when we are not paying the most careful attention to the beautiful words of Christ.

Sitting in church today I felt a familiar tug. “Uh-Oh,” I thought warily, “I recognize this tug.” As the pastor spoke about one thing, I felt God speaking to me about another.  I sensed Him asking if I wanted to see where I have drifted. “Seriously, Lord? I’ve drifted? Ugh.”  As He gently opened my eyes I felt a piercing that burned somewhere inside me.  It hurt to see my willfulness and pride.  I honestly didn’t want to know this, but wrapped in His love, I let myself see and then bowed in tearful sorrow.

It’s easy to get caught up in the thrills and tumbles of the days and drift from who we want to be and how we want to live.

Paying careful attention involves learning to listen to God as He speaks to us about our lives — wherever we are!  He helps us see our lives, notice where we have drifted and find the way back to our first Love.

“Father, I thank you that you love me enough to confront me.  After all these years, I need your gentle corrections more than ever.  Help me to return to my first Love every day and forgive my wandering heart. Amen.”

What about you?

Do you want to know where you have drifted?

Is Jesus your first Love?

Do you let God confront you?  He is that still, small voice that we bump into when we read the Word, hear a sermon,  and mainly, as we pay attention to our hearts.

Everyone’s life is aimed at something.  What is your life aimed at?

Worship

By Judy Villanueva

So keep your thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real, honorable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind. And fasten your thoughts on every glorious work of God, praising him always. (Philippians 4:8)

It was completely silent, except for the sound of lake water sloshing against the sides of the metal fishing boat that held us.  I was stretched out reading while my husband sat patiently, rotating the reel, waiting for the tug that would mean we were having fish for dinner!  It was one of those extraordinary moments when one feels held within the beauty of God and, ushered into a great shalom!  Between the blue skies that watched over us and the hundreds of pines that surrounded us, it would have been difficult to imagine that we would ever be unsettled by anything ever again!  I remember stepping into that little boat with an anxious heart and returning to shore, at peace.  What is it about gazing at beauty that quiets the soul and bears witness to the reality of God—on the throne, in charge, and magnificently reigning over heaven and earth?

God is beautiful!  Massively, spectacularly, incomprehensibly beautiful!  It would be impossible to tell the story of His infinite beauty and yet, He has graced us with foretastes scattered throughout the earth!  We see hints on purple mountain peaks laced in snow, and in the array of colors splashed across the landscape on a spring morning.  We marvel under the magic of a night sky and catch our breath in the presence of the sun rising in firey splendor.  Beauty blesses our soul and speaks to us of God in ways that words cannot.

When all seems lost and despair has declared a victory, beauty always has the final word — and that word is hope!

Reflecting on the attributes of God is a worthwhile and faith-building practice.  Awakening to His beauty in this world anchors us to the reality of God…a good and beautiful God!

There is something in the human spirit that intuitively understands that beauty doesn’t just happen.  It reflects and points to its Maker!

To behold His beauty is to discover His heart, peek at His face, and hear His loving whispers.  There is revelation of God on flower petals, ocean waves, and glaciers — ladybugs, redwoods, and the Milky Way!  At the heart of beauty is a happy God and our soul is calmed in its presence.  It bears witness that He is real, on the throne, in charge, and magnificently reigning over heaven and earth!

“Thank You, Father, for this world and every inch of beauty within it!  Help me to hear your voice through all of it.  I am so grateful for starlit skies and glassy lakes, for delicately colored flowers, rainbow trout and moose!  I praise you, most beautiful God!  Amen.” 

What about you? 

How does beauty impact you?  Does it?

When was the last time you were astounded by God’s beauty in creation?  How did it make you feel?

Is beholding beauty a familiar practice?

Do you know God as beautiful?

Worship

By Judy Villanueva

There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” (John 4:4-14) 

Another mile passed on a recent road trip and I could feel the relief that springtime always offers as I stared out the window.  Mesmerized by luscious green fields with purple mountain backdrops, I suddenly noticed a scene that made me smile and seemed to invite me to a holy pause.  At first, all I saw was a large grass field with gushing water stations spaced across its width.  Before I could make much sense of it, my eyes fell upon one cow that stood in front of a gusher drinking and drinking!  It made me laugh the way she stood so easily over the fountain and let the water fill and saturate her. Do you ever have those moments when a song, a scene from a movie, or a cow in a  field become the voice of God?  This was one of those moments, and even as I heard myself giggle, I felt the Lord say to me, “Drink!”

“Give me a drink.”  It was the way Jesus invited the Samaritan woman to friendship and the way he stirred up her thirst for living water.  She is immediately aware that something has broken through the barriers between Jew and Samaritan and becomes curious.  It is then that Jesus reveals himself — there that He offers her a drink from an eternal spring! “If you knew the gift of God and who it is who asks you for a drink…”

Can you feel the heartbeat of God in this encounter?  How each beat reaches out, woos and offers a priceless gift?

It makes me curious about all the ways that Jesus comes to me with enticements to drink each day and, aware that the thirst that parches my soul often  lingers because I simply and stubbornly do not walk over to the gusher and drink.

When I read scripture, there are times when the words seem to enter the room where I sit and become a drink of living water, particularly on days like this when I sit still and unhurried.  I am thirsty for God but so often don’t even know it and hence, live “dried up” instead of filled and overflowing.

Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control — are the wet, refreshing overflow of a saturated life!

How I want to live hydrated, but I must agree to pause at the well with Jesus and learn how to drink deeply.  It is then that I get a glimpse of the One who asks me for a drink and there, that  I feel my true thirst!   The Word of God wants to pour itself into our hearts and minds —but we need to walk over and drink!

“Thank you, Jesus, for seeing me at the wells that I draw from each day and offering me friendship. Keep showing me who You are and help me find my way to your springs of living water! Amen.”

What about you?

Can you feel your thirst for God?

Do you have a way of pausing at the well with Jesus and drinking deeply?

What does that look like for you?

Worship

By Judy Villanueva

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

“Crinkle, crinkle yittle star, how I wonder what you are…” I sang gently alongside my little grand-daughter as I rocked her to sleep. Her head rested on my shoulder and before long, I could feel her go limp in my arms.  I placed her in the crib, prayed a quiet prayer and stood a minute watching her surrender to sleep. In those sweet moments, God tapped me on the shoulder and I felt drawn into awareness that, much like this,

He watches over me wherever I happen to be in my life. He sees me as I come and as I go.  He sings alongside my songs and delights in knowing and loving me.

He may feel distant at times, but I only need look up to find His face!  He is always there, His eyes awaiting mine.

Seeking the face of God as we walk through our day invites us to notice where He is speaking, correcting, or guiding.  It may seem vague, but it really is as simple as returning to awareness that God is here.  Simple or not, I find I need practical help and so I set an alarm on my phone that rings every hour to remind me to “look up”.  It is easy to live a day immersed in activity, mentally disconnected from God, but anytime I agree to slow down I can feel soul-space open up and the potential for face-time!  I try to build into my week a rhythm of walks, prayer, spiritual reading, listening to worship music, and meditating on the Word, all as efforts to look at Jesus.  We live fully known by God at every moment, but if we want to see His face in the mirror, His life formed in us, we must engage with Him!

I am always intrigued by the moments in Scripture that mention an eye-to-eye encounter with Jesus. Like Jairus, who upon receiving word of his daughter’s death, looks up to find Jesus’ eyes on him with a command, “Do not be afraid. Just believe.” I can imagine Jairus thinking, “What shall I believe? My daughter has just died!”

Whatever it was that Jairus saw as he stood facing Jesus grabbed him from the midst of his despair, set him on his feet, and led him to a resurrection!

“Talitha Koum! Little girl, wake up!” And, she did! Is this what happens when we face Jesus?  Do we notice Him looking at us over the crowd and into our broken hearts?  Are we helped to hear His voice that shouts hope to our despair?  Are we emboldened to follow Him to places where our lives are restored and where we feel His gentle tap that reminds us He is watching over us?

“Lord, I want to see Your face. I want to remember You and live in Your presence more today than yesterday. Help me to engage with you, to slow down enough to hear you calling to me over, what is sometimes, a crowded life. Thank You for the tap on my shoulder and the reassurance that you watch over me. Amen.”

What about you?

What would be like to live a day looking at Jesus? How might it affect your thoughts? Your choices?

Have you experienced the face of God? The sense of Him seeing and knowing you?

Does the pace of your life allow for slowing down? Can you see Jesus over what crowds around you each day?

What habits help you connect to God?

God loves you and knows you. He watches over you always. Slow down and look up!

Worship

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