The Footstool Series – Part 2 – The Security of Change

After 20 years, I am saying goodbye to youth ministry.  I knew God was moving me from youth ministry, but after investing so much time it’s difficult to see your life in any other way.  What do people do on Tuesday nights? All I have known is sitting in a dimly lit gym with lights flashing, loud thumping music, lots of laughter and talking….action every where. So many different types of young people, preppy, popular, jocks, outcasts, church kids, non-church kids; but all needing the same thing…love and significance. Isn’t that what we all search for? With teenagers, the world offers them counterfeit love, and still being “children”, they don’t have the wisdom to know the difference.  Oddly enough with adults, we know the difference and still choose the counterfeit sometimes.

But this article isn’t about youth or adults ability to make good decisions; it is about change.  I am a person who likes to feel secure and comfortable, but I have found lately that God wants me to have a new adventure. I know I need it because I have felt like I could jump out of my skin with boredom. I am never bored with God, but I get bored with life & the work.  It is time that I move on to a new challenge.  Now the only reason, I am not curled up in the fetal position sucking my thumb at the thought of having my Tuesday nights free of obligation is that I am secure in the fact God is my constant companion and He never changes. 

Hebrews 13:8 – “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever”

What a remarkable thought, when I live at His footstool, change could be happening all around me; good or bad, but I feel completely secure because Jesus is close and HE never ever changes!!  That makes me feel good about the change that I would have normally fought, and don’t think I didn’t wrestle with the decision to leave youth ministry, I did!  However knowing that HE is with me and I’m holding on to Him with all my might helps me maneuver through the journey of change.  This particular season of change is harder because I don’t know what I’m changing to. It would be easier to say, “I left youth ministry to do this”.  I cannot say that; I’m leaving youth ministry, period.  I know He is taking me somewhere and since He is unchangeable, then I know even in the unknown direction of my life path, He is still guiding and won’t let me take the wrong direction.

Living at His footstool causes me to not just have Him with me where I go, but that I am following where HE is going and there is great security in that.

The Footstool Series – Part 1 – Do you hear me?

When I was growing up my mom would be in the kitchen getting dinner ready and I would usually be in the living room watching TV.  Many times my mom would call out to me “what do you want to drink with dinner” or some other question regarding the dinner she was preparing. I would shout back “what did you say?” she would ask me the same question, this time a little louder.  I was still not able to hear her. We repeated this until finally in frustration and a big dramatic sigh, I would get up and walk into the kitchen to find out what she wanted and usually it was something that could have waited to be answered.

Sometimes I believe this is the scenario we play over and over with God.  He is calling out to us, but we have so many noisy distractions around us and are living in the other room we never hear Him.  Only when we get up from where we are & go to where He is do we understand what He is trying to say to us. Often times we are the ones shouting at Him all of our requests, but we aren’t close enough to hear His answer.

Living at the footstool of Jesus, means we are so close to Him that He could whisper to us & we could hear Him.  Which often times He does as a still small voice (1Kings 19:12). We can also whisper back to Him our hopes, dreams, stresses, challenges, frustrations, or our worship and He is there to hear it and you KNOW that He has. When you are that close to someone, you can hear the inflection in their voice & read their facial expressions.  That is how close Jesus wants to be with us.  Listen to His words in the Bible & imagine how He said them to whom He was speaking or how He is speaking them to you. 

Many times we need prayers answered or direction for our lives and get frustrated when we think He hasn’t answered us, when we are the ones in the other room far from Him and distracted.

So my challenge is to sit at the footstool of Jesus this week and breathe Him in and listen to what He wants to say to you.

The Treasure of Your Heart & Power of Your Tongue (September 2010)


The subject matter of this article isn’t really a triumph of Jesus’ power and joy in my life, but rather a scathing indictment to what I am NOT doing right. Many of you know me as “mo”, but I must tell you the name I often call myself is “Complainy Mcplainerson”. This realization that I in fact complain…A LOT, came to me on the way to my nephews first birthday party. A happy time by all accounts, however, I wasn’t happy with certain aspects of the party planning, which I won’t bore you with details. I am riding in my car with my mom and I started complaining about the poor planning of the party etc, when my mother looked over at me and asked “do you have a can opener”. I looked at her and sheepishly replied, “do you mean on me”; (again picture the scene; me – driving - in a car – nowhere near a kitchen). She kind of smiled and said “yes”. After I asked her why she asked me that, she pulled out a can of baked beans from a grocery bag. Now, the reason this story is shamefully humorous is that we were on our way to celebrate a one year olds birthday in a park and to my knowledge there isn’t a kitchen there much less public can openers available. At that moment I snapped back at my mother as to why she would bring an unopened can of beans to the park. She too, was bothered by the planning festivities of her only grandchild’s birthday party. It was her subtle (I use this term loosely) way of making a statement that she was in fact not happy. In that moment I thought to myself, what kind of freak show family did I get stuck with? Haven’t we all wondered that from time to time, why we ended up with the families we have, ahh, but I digress. My mother then went on to complain about her displeasure about the circumstances as she was talking her voice became fainter and my internal monologue became louder. I stepped out of myself as an objective onlooker to my family and my conversations and realized that I came from a long line of complainers. I didn’t realize that complaining could in fact be a generational curse. Over the past few weeks, I really made a point to listen to myself in conversations and noticed how over & over again, I would complain about anything and everything; big situations, small situations it didn’t matter, I complained about it all.

I now ask myself how can a born-again, Spirit-filled believer complain so much about things that in fact do not really matter in the grand scheme of life? I should have all the fullness of life in my speech. Now that is not to say I should walk around as a robot quoting scriptures, because in fact I am human, and I am most definitely not perfect. But, there is a line between being real & letting the negative reservoir of my heart come spilling out on everyone.

The following scripture came to my memory:

Luke 6:45 states plainly “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.”

Looking up the definitions of words always excites me and in this sentence “abundance” in the Greek means; “abundance, in which one delights”. Following that up was “mouth” in the Greek meaning “the thoughts of a man’s soul find verbal utterance by his mouth, the heart or soul and mouth are distinguished”; but most interestingly it also means “the edge of a sword”. So, my paraphrase of this scripture is “for with what you delight in your heart you speak out loud using the edge of a sword”. So my mouth is like an edge of a sword and with I could cause injury to those to whom I am speaking. I have been around many people who complain and as I walk away, I feel as though I have been cut down and depressed, it never occurred to me that after I have vomited my complaints out to others, they walk away feeling the same way. I have actually cut them down instead of speaking life, even if it is my life I’m talking about at the time.

In Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” It only takes a few brief moments in conversation with someone to know what is close to their heart. So our heart acts as a treasure chest and we put all those wonderfully dear things that we love in it. In Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” this clearly lets me know that what I consider my treasure will also be what I hold dear to my heart. This brings me back to the scripture in Luke 6:45, I either have good treasure or bad treasure in my heart and I’ll either speak good or bad depending on the type of treasure.

So with this knowledge, I am evaluating what I am putting in my treasure box inside my heart. Am I letting my unhappy circumstances override the many blessings that God has give me. Why am I so discontented that at the slightest hiccup in my plans that I react negatively and I dare say with great drama. My foundation and faith in Jesus Christ should be my rock to which I hold to no matter what tidal wave tries to knock me down. I believe it is a matter of will to speak life instead of complaining. In Hebrews (4:12) the Word of God is referred to as a sword “For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."

Did you notice that last part; “discerner of the thoughts & intents of the heart”. My mouth was made to speak the Word of God, to speak life instead of death; “the power of life and death are in the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). When I speak the sword (symbolically my mouth) should slay the devil and His powers within the situations, instead of slaying the person to whom I am talking. Our words have power. God himself creative power came through speaking. So our words have creative power because we are in fact made in His image.

The first thing I have learned about myself is to understand the need to cast out those unpleasant situations, hurts, & disappointments that crept into the treasure box of my heart and turn them over to Jesus. After taking those issues from my now empty heart I want to be filled up with God’s love, peace, the Word, & Holy Spirit, so that the treasure of my heart is good and that I will speak good life-changing devil slaying things. This journey to changing my attitude and speaking patterns will not happen over night, but I am determined to give myself over to the process and let God do His marvelous work. Lastly, we didn’t eat baked beans at the party.

~ Melissa Graw