Tag: disciple

Maturing Like Vanilla

.Reading time 7 minutes.

Hello again my dear friends.  I have been incredibly grateful for all of you that have subscribed to this blog. If you have not yet subscribed and would like to… please head over to the homepage, scroll to the bottom and type in your email in the provided box. I do not sell your email address, and this does not subscribe you to junk mail.

I enjoy learning new things all the time. I like to think of myself as a jack of all trades. If I do not know how to do something, I try to learn. I spent a long time not being able to do things that looked interesting or fun. Yesterday marks 1 year exactly since I had my Explant surgery. For those that don’t know what this is… it is a surgery to remove breast implants. Basically in 2013 I had implants put in because I did not have my identity in Christ. That is the easiest explanation of why. Starting in 2015, I got sick. I continued to get sicker and sicker every year. I had so many strange ailments that I seemed like a hypochondriac. I found out that my implants were slowly killing me.

Since having them removed I have continued to get better. I have gotten so much healthier and been able to do so much more with my life. I am definitely more present as a mom and wife. I have also been able to have some amazing conversations with other women who have been sick because of the same thing. Through the sickness and toxicity, I developed fibromyalgia. There is currently no cure. I have days that are great, and I have days that I am in bed. I praise the Lord for allowing me to have so many more good days now. So, on good days, I want to live a full life and learn new things.

This week I took on the adventure of making my own vanilla extract. There are so many different ways to make it. One way that I found involved an Instapot, vodka, and a bunch of vanilla beans. I started with a clear liquid and after 35 minutes of pressure cooking the vodka with the beans, I had a beautiful amber liquid. I have no clue how it tastes. I can not even try it for another month. Right now, it still smells very alcoholic. The smells let me know that it is not ready. I am excited to see how it matures in a month. This whole process reminded me of our spiritual maturity.

Spiritual maturity is something that we all need to perceive with reality. I first got a good grasp of this maturity from Jim Putman’s book Real Life Discipleship. Jim explains the different stages of spiritual maturity as: Dead, Infant, Child, Teenager, Adult, Parent. I have come to focus on just: Dead, Infant, Teenager, Adult, Parent. I focus on those because that is what my spiritual mother taught me. If you want a breakdown of the different stages of maturity, I strongly encourage you to read Jim’s book or get with a disciple maker! One thing I know for sure is that age does not equate spiritual maturity. The traditional way to make vanilla extract involves putting the beans in vodka and letting it ferment for at least three months while occasionally shaking the bottle up. My vanilla is now 1 day old. If you put my vanilla next to a bottle that was traditionally made and also 1 day old… you would find that they are vastly different. There has been special care put into my vanilla to help it mature quicker. One way is not better than the other. They are simply different processes. Just as I know 50 year old women that are still spiritual infants while I know 30 year old women that are spiritual parents. The parents have had special care put into them.

One thing that I am reminded of is 2 Corinthians 3:1-18. I really want to focus on verse 18.         

 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

This speaks into the fact that we are all being transformed over and over. While it is true that the process of making Disciples matures believers, it is also true that the maturing comes from the Lord. The Lord who is the Spirit. This maturing happens through abiding, reading the word, a solid prayer life, and making Jesus Lord of every aspect of your life. All of these things take time. They don’t happen overnight. We may reach spiritual maturity, but we will continue to move from glory to glory. By this I mean that there is glory in what we were, what we are, and what we are to become.

My questions for you…

Are you giving your spiritual life special care?

Are you using the right ingredients?

Are you rushing the maturing process?

There is too much in this verse for me to unpack it all in here. I encourage you to really study this verse and dig into unveiled face, beholding, transformed, and glory. Look into the Greek! What is the voice of the Lord for you in this verse? Don’t forget to check out the resource page on this site!

Grace & Peace

-Chorley

Eshet Chayil

.Reading time 8 minutes.
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I have enjoyed the amount of intentional conversations that I have had lately. I think the current pandemic has allowed me to slow down and do many things I have known I needed to do. I have been cooking and cleaning more. Which is something I have not been healthy enough to do the last five years. I have had a series of conversations lately that have driven me to write this to you today. First I was doing a Hebrew bible study with a small group that I meet with on Thursdays. It is Basically each of the APEST sitting around the table sharing what the Lord is revealing to them. It is a group that, while I am thankful for, without Jesus we might never know each other. While doing a study on Hebrews words, a couple of us gave each other new Hebrew names. I was told that I would be called the woman warrior due to all I have been through. At the time we were not positive what the word was… I showed admiration for the name and kept my personal desires to myself. I have been a warrior for too long. I just want to be the humble, lace aproned, bread making, clothes folding Proverbs 31 wife I pictured from a better homes and gardens magazine I saw on a coffee table at the doctor’s office as a child. Fast forward and I find myself having conversations with many women who are struggling. Struggling to get up earlier to spend time with Jesus, struggling to keep their house clean, struggling to get laundry done, struggling to get motivated to cook yet another meal, struggling with the desire to be intimate with their husbands, struggling with wanting to be a stay at home mom, struggling with wanting to work. The list of struggles goes on and on. The reasons for why each thing is a struggle is very real and very personal. I won’t go into their details any further. I have had all of these struggles. I have struggled to be motivated. I have struggled to keep my house up. I have struggled to want to cook, I have struggled to desire an intimate relationship with my husband. Up until Saturday, there were about three distinct piles of clothes on my bedroom floor. When my home is messy, it stresses me out. I try to keep up between running this house, raising 3 kids, making disciples, going to school full time and now homeschooling my 3 children. My first thought when I see the mess, is that I am failing at what I want to be. This Proverbs 31 woman. I suck. This is my job and it is not getting completed. When ever I would have conversations with the woman who walked with me, I never left feeling beat up or defeated. So why should I leave the Lord’s word feeling that way? I recently dug in further to this exquisite creature that I desired to emulate. The first thing that I noticed was that this whole chapter was a prophecy most likely brought to Solomon from his mother, Bathsheba. The next thing that I see is the whole epilogue of the noble woman has three different themes. The first section verses 10-12 reflects the wife’s value. The next section verses 13-27 describe things she does. The third section, verses 28-31, praises her. The interesting part is that her value is not hinged on the things she does. When you look at verse 10, A wife of noble character, who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. When I dug in to this I found that the word Noble was not used until the mid 1500’s when men were beginning to fear the power that women had. Until this time the word Powerful was used. It is a translation from the original Hebrew word “Chayil” (Khah’-yil). This word Chayil is spelled in Hebrew Chet-Yood-Lamed. The Chet is the symbol of a gate that represents a safe place. The Yood symbol that looks like the arm represents mighty work. The Lamed represents the shepherd staff and demonstrates the voice of authority. So here with them all together this word of power comes from a place of protection that performs mighty work and falls under strong leadership. The few other times this word is used, it is used of strong men in battle. The next word that stuck out to me was Rubies. The word here was translated from the Hebrew word “Peninim” (paw-neen). At the time that this text was wrote the original word was more likely to mean Pearls than Rubies. There is great significance in this. While rubies are beautiful, they can occur naturally all over the world. A pearl however does not occur naturally. Well not quite. A pearl is only formed when a foreign piece of shell, bone, sand, or parasite get in a mollusk. The mollusk will then form a nucleus around the foreign body. The mollusk will continue to coat the foreign body with several layers of nacre for many years. Most natural pearls vary in size, color, and time it takes to make them. So, this woman we are speaking of in Proverbs 31 is rarer than a gem that is only made when a mollusk takes its injury and turns it into something beautiful? The odds of a mollusk making a pearl are about 1 in 10,000. So, from this I am seeing that while rare, it is possible. A proverbs 31 woman is not a perfect wife. Rather a wife that creates a sanctuary for her family. She is willing to do mighty work, whatever that looks like for her. She is also one that submits to the authority of God and her husband. I guess the woman warrior is the Proverbs 31 wife. No matter what my house looks like.

            Surley your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,

            And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.      Pslam 23:6

The Fig Tree

.Reading time 8 minutes.
Photo by Dina Nasyrova on Pexels.com

Through a series of events, conversations and sitting in the word, the Lord has put in on my heart to talk about the Fig tree with you. One thing that I have recently picked up from another writer, who I encourage you to check out ( Lindsay Dryer), is the request that before you read the rest of the blog you read the scripture that it is pertaining to. I know that we do this on Sunday mornings, so why not here?

            Matthew 21:18-22, Mark 11:12-25, Luke 13:6-9

As always, there is a lot to unpack here. I am not going to unpack it all. I am also going to try to not follow the rabbit. Know that if I followed the rabbit we would also end up in Hosea 9 and Micah 6&7. That would lead us to so much more. So, I do encourage you to seek for yourself.

In Matthew 21:18-22, we read about Jesus being on his way back to the city of Jerusalem. On his way he found himself hungry. When he got to the tree he found only leaves. So, he curses the tree to never bear fruit again. It withers immediately.

In Mark 11:12-25, we read that Jesus was leaving Bethany on his way to Jerusalem. He was Hungry and saw a fig tree in leaf. When he got to the tree he found no figs because it was not in season. Then he cursed the fig tree to never bear fruit again. The story picks back up after Jesus clears out the temple that has become a den of robbers. The disciples and Jesus then see that the tree has withered.

( I am not concerned about the variation in the text because there are different writers form different perspectives. We all see things first from our view and include what we find relevant)

In Luke 13:6-9, we read a parable about a fig tree. A man had a fig tree in a vineyard, that had not bore fruit for the past three years. He has a conversation with his worker to tear it down. The worker tells the man that he would like to dig around the base and fertilize it. If it then bears fruit, fine. If it still does not, he will cut it down.

To explain any of this I want to first explain figs, trees, leaves, and seasons. A fig is considered a syconium. A syconium is a fleshy hollow receptacle that develops into a multiple fruit, as in a fig. Cultivated fig trees have two seasons. A Breba season and a New wood season. The Breba season is when the tree produces leaves and simultaneously produces fruit on the previous years shoot. This season is around the beginning of June. Many people remove this fruit because it encourages the growth of the fruit for the next season (New wood season) This fruit is easily destroyed by frost and is not lasting. It often goes bad quickly. Many people refer to this fruit as the poor man’s fruit. The Next season is the New wood season. This season runs from August to October. The fruit ripens on the current year’s new growth. This fruit is larger and superior in quality. Some people hold the belief that there are three seasons to figs. This third “season” is actually just a growth stage that figs go through. This is not a season of fruit, just something that happens to the fruit. This stage is the caprification. There are three parts of the caprification. There is the male fig,(Capri fig) that is filled with pollen bearing flowers. There is the female fig,(Smyrna fig) that will only ripen when it has been pollinated. Finally, there is the Fig wasp. The fig wasp is adapted to living with and in figs. This wasp carries pollen from male figs to female figs. These wasps are usually only about 1.5mm in size. More often than not the wasp will die inside the female fig. The wasp will die pollinating the fig, not because it wants to, but because this is it’s life by design. There are common figs that do not require this stage. Common figs are still edible, they just lack the quality and flavor of one that has been pollinated.

Everything that is in the word is by design. All of it. When Jesus walked up, the season would have been during Passover. If the tree were full of leaves, it would mean that it was going through seasons earlier than it should. It made the appearance to others from afar that it had something that it did not. It was not until one was up close that they were able to see that there was no real fruit. There were leaves, sure. The leaves are very crucial to the life of the tree. The leaves produce energy for the tree. The leaves use parts of water and carbon dioxide to make sugar. The water gets to the leaf through a set of pipes inside the tree, which go all the way down to the roots. The base. The foundation. Having leaves did show that the tree was getting water from its foundation. However, this tree made itself look like it had growth that it did not. This tree made it look like it had matured to a season that it was not ready for. For this deception, the Lord cursed this tree. The other tree, however, has no mention of leaves. Only a lack of fruit is mentioned. The owner is ready to cut it down. The worker, however, wants to dig at the foundation and feed the tree.

My questions for you…

Are you a tree that shows itself to have growth that is does not?

Are you trying to do things out of the Lord’s timing?

Are you a tree that never produces fruit for its master?

Specifically, for Disciple Makers:

Are you a worker that is willing to dig into the foundation and fertilize others? Keep in mind, that not all fertilizer smells good and not every tree will grow when fertilized. Are you willing to prune those who produce no fruit?