Tag: christianity

He is With Me

On By Judy GlasserIn JulyLeave a comment

God has spoken to me very clearly for the last 8 years as I read through the Bible every year and I get to Isaiah 43:2 & 3.

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.  
When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”

Eight years ago my life blew up.   My son, David Glasser was a Phoenix Police Officer, who was killed in the line of duty on May 16, 2016.  The promise of God in this scripture has been very real in my life.

When I am passing through the waves of grief…

*of disappointment…

*of disillusionment…

*of pain….

God is with me.

When I am passing through a river of tears…

*pierced by the shattered pieces of my broken heart.

*trying to figure out how to live with a huge hole in my life…

the river does not sweep over me.  God is with me.

When I am walking through the fire of anger…

* not happy with my reality…..

* trying to understand….

I am not burned.  God is with me.

I am passing through.  I’m not getting stuck in these places.  Everything that happens in my life has first gone through the hands of my Father God.  He has a purpose.

So I will trust him as I pass through the water, the river and the fire.

Thank you for walking closely beside me, Abba Father.

Anything Change Lately?

On By Judy GlasserIn JulyLeave a comment

I don’t understand people who tell me they don’t like change. Change has been constant in my life. How about you? Anything change lately?

I realized that change was going to be one of the few constant things in life pretty early on in this journey so I decided I was going to learn to like it. I adopted a perspective that change is good. Maybe not all good, but there would be parts of it that I was going to like.

When things changed, I also realized that I usually got rid of some of my least favorite things in my past situation. Nice!

I remember God stopping me as I was reading Isaiah 42:10 about 14 years ago when I was facing a big change. “Sing to the LORD a new song.” God spoke to me, telling me he was giving me a new song to sing through this upcoming transition. My daughter had just announced her engagement so my family was changing – again. After their wedding, she and her new husband were moving to Sydney, Australia for a job opportunity.

So my new song was filled with gratefulness to God for her happiness, asking for blessings on their marriage and requesting help in growing my trust in his care for her as she moved so far way.

Then, before the wedding, my daughter was diagnosed with cancer and my new song to God was full of concern along with words of confidence that he is always in control and nothing is impossible for God.

Since then, God has given me many ‘new songs’ as the seasons of my life have changed.

Eight years ago my son, David Glasser, who was a Phoenix police officer was killed in the line of duty. It is the worst thing that can possibly happen to a parent. God was my Rock in this storm and he gradually wrote a new song in my life of deeper trust in him and empathy for other people whose lives have blown up.

Four years ago, my husband and I moved to Denver after living in Phoenix for over 40 years. Once again, God gave me a new song filled with gratitude for being able to live close to my daughter and her family, praises to God for the beauty of the mountains and dependence on him for guidance with all the new beginnings.

Last year I published a book on Amazon, “Then I Looked Up: Losing a Child, Finding His Legacy of Love.” Ever since that time, God has given me a new song of great conversations with other people who have experienced tragedy, encouragement from people telling me that reading my story helped them in their journey of grief and a better understanding of the purpose of my pain.

As my life continues to change, I am grateful to my Father God for the new songs he gives me.

It Makes a Difference

On By Judy GlasserIn JulyLeave a comment

My life is short.

My life is fragile.

My life is a tiny flicker of light that can be extinguished in an instant.

I had an incident a couple of years ago where an antelope came out of no where and hit my car as I was driving 75 mph on a rural highway in Wyoming. I saw him a second before he hit me and I had this exact thought – “This could be it.” The end. I had heard of deer coming through the windshield and people being killed.

It wasn’t ‘it’ because the antelope bounced off and ran into the bush after poking a big hole in my car – which was still drivable.

It wasn’t ‘it’ but it could have been.

God tells us through Isaiah that ‘Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fade but the Word of our God endures forever.” Isaiah 40: 7 & 8.

Forever.

When I sit here with my Bible open on my lap, I am letting the only truth of all the ages soak into my mind. God’s Word has been the one thing that is right and good since time began. How amazing that this is so readily available to me every hour of every day!

How amazing that the Eternal Creator of the Universe speaks to me personally through these words!

How amazing that this entire book is a love story written to me by God. It’s God’s revelation of how much he loves me and you.

My life is short and fragile and just a small flicker of light in the big picture. I’m so glad that I know that my Father God sees me as his precious daughter who is so important to him that he made a way that I could live with him in my forever home in heaven.

My life may be short and fragile but I’m important to God….

and that makes all the difference.

He Knows

On By Judy GlasserIn JulyLeave a comment

How often are we on ‘auto-pilot’ when it comes to our relationship with God?

Just going through the motions?

In Isaiah 29, God tells his people that their worship was meaningless because it was based on human rules but their hearts aren’t engaged.  They are saying the right words but they didn’t mean them. “The LORD says: ‘These people come near me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Isaiah 29:13.

God can tell the difference.  He knows when I are focused on him with all of my heart.  He knows my thoughts and intentions. He knows when my thinking wanders away from him – even if my Bible is laying open on my lap. He knows when I am just saying things I have been taught to say but there is no passion and love behind them.

My love for God shines bright when its authentic. When its real. When its based on a personal relationship, not just traditions that I have been taught by others.

God sees right into my heart and he knows. He knows if I’m serious about my faith.

There is no ‘faking it’ with God.

Please help me worship you and love you like you want me to, Abba Father

Who Makes the Difference?

On By Judy GlasserIn JulyLeave a comment

Life can feel like a roller coaster ride of emotions – up and down and sometimes upside down.

Or it can feel more like a smooth, level path.

What makes the difference? A better question is – WHO makes the difference?

God stopped me today as I read Isaiah 26:7, “The path of the righteous is level; You, the Upright One, make the way of the righteous smooth.”

I’ll admit, I have had many emotional roller coaster rides these last 8 years since my son, David Glasser, who was a Phoenix Police Officer, was killed in the line of duty. I have experienced more crazy extreme feelings of grief, loss, sadness, and heart break than I ever had before.

I have learned to quickly turn to God for his comfort, love and direction. When I do that, the roller coaster ride slows down. My emotions settle and the fog of pain in my mind gradually disappears. This is God smoothing out my way.

Just to be clear – I am ‘righteous’ because of what Jesus did for me, not because of anything I have done. God sees me as ‘righteous’ because I have accepted salvation through his son, Jesus.

I know my Father God is walking closely beside me, smoothing out my thinking and leveling the mountains of emotions created when I lost a child. I still have all the feelings but I face them with peace in my soul as I am held, grounded and secure, within my Father’s strong arms.

I have learned to trust God at a whole new level and I am totally confident that he is working all things out for my good.

I don’t understand it all, so I’m trusting him with it all.

God’s Math

On By Judy GlasserIn JulyLeave a comment

God has a supernatural math when it comes to our generosity with our money and time in supporting the work of his kingdom.

His math is not like our math where 1+1=2.

God’s math makes 1+1=100.  Or 1000.  Or 1,000,000 if he wants it to be.

God’s blessing + our giving = everybody wins.

When we give to God, we don’t have less.  We have more.  Don’t ask me to explain it – it’s just the truth.  I’ve experienced it many times.  We truly cannot out give God.

God’s math has been true for thousands of years.   In 2 Chronicles, after the Israelites started  to bring their contributions to the Temple of the Lord, they found that they had more than enough to eat with plenty to spare.  God multiplied their generosity by giving them back more – a lot more.  “When Hezekiah and his officials came and saw the heaps (of contributions), they praised the LORD and blessed his people Israel.” 2 Chronicles 31:8.   The king built large storerooms for all of the leftover contributions and put the Levites in charge of distributing the food as gifts to other towns.

See how God’s math works?  Their generosity just kept multiplying and spreading.  Now even their neighbors were being blessed.

God does the same thing today.  If you haven’t personally experienced this, test him and see.

Be Very Careful

On By Judy GlasserIn JulyLeave a comment

Who are we imitating? Who are we following?

‘Following’ has a different definition today because of social media.  But it still refers to our choice of people that we are letting have an influence on our lives.

These are the people we are giving permission to enter our minds and thoughts because we’re reading and listening to what they are sharing.  We are ‘following’ their lives.

Who are these people in my life? Are they leading me to places I should go?

Are they helping me grow my integrity?  Are they helping me become more wise?  More caring?

The Israelites were not careful about who they followed. “They rejected his (God’s) decrees and the covenant he had made with their ancestors and the statues he had warned them to keep. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. ” 2 Kings 17: 15 – 16.

Wow – worthless.

They picked the wrong things to follow. They imitated the wrong things and ended up on a very bad path.

That is not a path I want to be on.

Please give me wisdom in deciding who to follow, Abba Father

Dedicated

On By Judy GlasserIn JulyLeave a comment

Purifying the temple

Consecrating the articles of the temple.

Sacrifices of sin offerings.

When we read about these things in the Old Testament, we can easily think “What does any of this have to do with me? How can God speak to me through these parts of the Bible?”

The fact is that God speaks to us through all parts of the Bible. The Holy Spirit can make it all relevant to our lives today ….. if we open our minds and listen.

I am reading 2 Chronicles about all the religious reforms King Hezekiah made when he became king. He purified the temple. He consecrated the articles of the temple and he led the people in all types of sacrifices and offerings. When they were done, he told them, “You have now dedicated yourselves to the LORD.” 2 Chronicles 29:31.

As I read, God talks to me about consecrating my life since Jesus’ death and resurrection has made me a temple of God’s Spirit. This means cleansing my life – taking anything out that is not helping me grow my relationship with God. This is one of my favorite phrases – ‘what we feed, grows.” This might mean changing channels on the TV or changing sites that we check out on our computers. It could mean stopping magazine subscriptions or avoiding the types of the books we used to read. Maybe we need to change the kind of music we listen to? There might be people in our lives that we should give less time and less influence.

Consecrating and dedicating my life to God also means to stop focusing on my own desires and and keep my eyes open to what God is doing and what he wants me to do.

I want to live my life your way from now on, Abba Father.

The Main Things

On By Judy GlasserIn JuneLeave a comment

Have you heard anyone say something like, ” I just can’t figure  out what God wants from me?” or “I really don’t know what God wants me to do?”

Statements like these confuse me because I think God is amazingly clear and to the point about the ‘main things’ that need to be the focus in my life.

The only two commandments Jesus gave us are to love God with our whole hearts and love others.  Jesus tells me that obeying these 2 commandments fulfills ‘all the law and the prophets’ which includes the original 10 commandments from the Old Testament.

There used to be 10 commandments – now it’s 2.  God knows we need simple and clear directions.

As I read the 6th chapter of Micah, I am again amazed at how direct God is as he tells me what he expects from me. ” And what does the LORD require from you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8.

Which part of that is unclear?

Act justly – do the right things. God tells us what is right in his Word.

Love mercy – forgive others.  Give people a break especially when they don’t deserve it.  Help others.

Walk humbly with God – develop a close relationship with God understanding that he is a supernatural combination of Creator of the Universe, the Holy and Perfect One and my Abba Father.

Micah told us this thousands of years ago.  I have discovered that, if I am serious about doing the things God has already told me to do, he fills in the other details at the right time.

Do you think its time to stop asking God what he wants us to do and focus on the directions he has already given us?

Stop The Excuses

On By Judy GlasserIn JuneLeave a comment

I’m surprised when I find myself doing it – rationalizing.  I start to make excuses for making not great choices. I find myself thinking it’s ‘not really bad’.

Do you do this, too?

Do you tell yourself “everyone’s doing it” or “no one will ever know” when you think about doing something that’s not quite right?

God’s words through Isaiah are very clear about our tendency to rationalize away bad decisions.  “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter”.  Isaiah5:20.

Woe to me when I call evil good…..or call evil okay.  These words echo through my head as I recommit to stop rationalizing things.

I need to be discerning – don’t accept evil as good, don’t call shades of darkness light.

I need to be wise.  This doesn’t mean I go around judging other people.  God is their judge.  I’m focusing on my behavior and my values and my choices.  I’m focusing on calling good good and calling evil evil in my life.

And stop the excuses, stop the rationalizing.