Happy Thursday

When My Wild Heart Pushes the Boundary

By Lysa TerKeurst
"LORD, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places..." Psalm 16:5-6a (NIV)

"Mrs. TerKeurst, your dog ran away to our house ... AGAIN."

"Mrs. TerKeurst, I think I might have just seen your dog running down the street."

"Mrs. TerKeurst, this is one of your neighbors. Just letting you know we're about to drop off your dog—we saw him running around our neighborhood."

"Mrs. TerKeurst, this is the animal clinic. I believe we have your dog."

"Mrs. TerKeurst, do you own two dogs?"


I own three dogs. But my two outside dogs, Champ and Chelsea, are sometimes delinquent. I love them. They love me. But they love running away more. Even though we didn't have a fence, we had other systems in place to keep them safely at home!

I can't tell you the number of sleepless nights I've had fretting over my dogs. Several times we've enlisted our friends to pray for Champ and Chelsea. But this sort of backfired on us once.

One of our friends knew Champ had gone missing and miraculously found him in a yard miles from our home. He was amazed Champ had run so far. He pulled into the driveway, coaxed Champ into his car, and called me with breathless excitement to announce he'd found my beloved dog.

But five minutes before my friend got to my house, Champ came home. When my friend pulled into my driveway carrying a Champ lookalike, we both about fell over. My friend had kidnapped someone else's dog—right from their front yard!

Oh my glory be.

It was time to do something.

I used to think invisible fences were cruel. I couldn't stand the thought of my dog getting a shock. So, I looked into getting a regular fence. But we live in the country and installing a regular fence was simply out of the question.

An invisible fence it would have to be. After all, a shock to keep them inside the safe boundary is a lot better than what might happen outside the boundary.

Boundaries aren't cruel barriers meant to keep my dogs from freedom. They are protective restrictions meant to define where safe freedom can be found.

And my dogs aren't the only ones who need to remember this lesson. I need to remember this, and apply it to the protective restrictions God has for me.

Why? Because there's usually some sort of boundary my wild heart tries to push against.

Have you ever found yourself rationalizing some situation in your life where you know you aren't doing what God said we should do?
Does God really want us to love our enemies? Is it really important to not let the sun go down on my anger? Do I really need to pray and read my Bible every day? Oh, grumbling isn't so bad ... I mean everyone finds something to complain about.

I push against the boundaries. Sometimes I even break through them. But what's waiting on the other side isn't freedom.
Oh Lord, let my wild heart always remember ...

Your instructions, Your boundaries, aren't cruel barriers to keep me from freedom. They are protective restrictions meant to define where safe freedom can be found.

And Lord, if You can teach this same lesson to my dogs, my neighbors, friends and I would be ever so grateful.

Dear Lord, thank You for the protective hand that You have placed over me. Cultivate in me an obedient heart that seeks to live in the safe freedom of Your boundaries. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling

1. Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, 
 calling for you and for me; 
 see, on the portals he's waiting and watching, 
 watching for you and for me. 
Refrain:
 Come home, come home; 
 ye who are weary come home; 
 earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling, 
 calling, O sinner, come home! 

2. Why should we tary when Jesus is pleading, 
 pleading for you and for me? 
 Why should we linger and heed not his mercies, 
 mercies for you and for me? 
 (Refrain) 

3. Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing, 
 passing from you and from me; 
 shadows are gathering, deathbeds are coming, 
 coming for you and for me. 
 (Refrain) 

4. O for the wonderful love he has promised, 
 promised for you and for me! 
 Though we have sinned, he has mercy and pardon, 
 pardon for you and for me. 
 (Refrain) 

Daily Smile:

A man is being interviewed for a job. “What are your qualifications for the job of night watchman?” 

 

“The slightest noise wakes me up.”

In The News:

Cairo Mosque Turned Into Christian Torture Chamber
Radical Islamists took over a Cairo mosque and used it to torture Christians who had been protesting against the Muslim Brotherhood, CBN News reports. According to Fox News, mosque officials were so upset over the incident that they had filed a police report. Leaders of Bilal Ibn Rabah mosque said radicals took control of the building after Friday prayers, then detained Christian and Muslim protesters and tortured them there for hours. Mosque officials said they "deeply regret what has happened and apologize." Observers say that more radical elements of the Muslim Brotherhood are gaining power in Egypt and pushing an Islamist agenda.

Each Family Dinner Adds Up to Benefits for Adolescents
Parents have heard it for years: Family dinners help kids avoid risky behaviors and may even help them in school. But new research shows that the more frequent these dinners, the better the adolescents fare emotionally "The effect doesn't plateau after three or four dinners a week," says Frank Elgar, an associate professor of psychiatry at McGill University in Montréal and coauthor of the study published this week in the Journal of Adolescent Health. "The more dinners a week the better." The study was based on a nationally representative sample of 26,069 Canadian adolescents ages 11 to 15 in 2010. With each additional dinner, researchers found fewer emotional and behavioral problems, greater emotional well-being, more trusting and helpful behaviors toward others and higher life satisfaction, regardless of gender, age or family economics. However, while researchers see a correlation, they can't say family dinners caused the benefits. "We don't know if family dinners contribute to mental health, or if mental health and other behavioral problems cause some teenagers to avoid the family dinner," Elgar said.

Huckabee: Evangelicals Will Leave if GOP Backs Gay Marriage
Evangelicals will leave the Republican Party if it supports redefining marriage to include same-sex couples, said former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. When asked in a Newsmax interview if he believed the Republican Party would change its position and support gay marriage, Huckabee remarked, "They might, and if they do, they're going to lose a large part of their base because evangelicals will take a walk. ... And it's not because there's an anti-homosexual mood, and nobody's homophobic that I know of, but many of us, and I consider myself included, base our standards not on the latest Washington Post poll, but on an objective standard, not a subjective standard." Evangelicals comprise an important base within the Republican Party; today, about three out of four evangelicals vote Republican.