Mary Jane Poormon: Summer Devo Series

Mary Jane Poormon: Thank you. Josh has a bus ready. We're going to go get donuts. The end. Let's go.
Now, this is one of my favorite times or favorite days of the week in the summer.
It's just a time that fills my cup because there are so many of you that I don't see or we don't see each other during the normal year
because you're doing your thing in your spot and we're doing our thing.
And so it's just nice for eight or nine weeks to come together and actually see you guys.
And it's just really a blessing to me.
So thank you all for coming today.
I really appreciate you being here.
I've spent lots of time the last few weeks asking the Lord to place the words on my heart that he wanted me to share today.
And he kept leading me back to Paul's words in Ephesians 3 and this sweet reminder of his faithful love.
When I was born, my parents liked to say that they were the charter members of the Abraham and Sarah Club.
They were not 99 and 100, but they were close.
Unfortunately for my dad, I was not the Isaac that he wanted.
I was another girl.
He had been in the waiting room three times, and alas, the fourth time was yet another girl.
My two older sisters, who are here today, were in high school, and they were absolutely humiliated that their mother was expecting a baby.
My youngest sister, closest to me, is still mad that she was dethroned as the baby of the family.
And so they like to call me the uh-oh baby.
Here's the uh-oh, here's the accident.
I like to think of myself as the baby of blessing because I've kept them all young.
So they can be happy about that.
My precious dad lived in a house full of women.
Five.
Count those.
That's a lot of women.
He spent a lot of time outside and he had a beautiful yard.
And I think I understand that, having a daughter of my own.
He gave us, when we were 10 or 12 years old, a locket.
Each of us got one, and it had our name engraved on the front,
and on the backside, closest to our heart, it was engraved with Daddy's Girl.
I couldn't wait for that day, because my daddy was the first man to capture my heart.
Wherever he went, I was not far behind.
When I was four or five, I would work in the yard with him. He would mow and tend to the flowers and dig holes to plant trees and stick me down inside to see if it was deep enough.
And I would make mud pies and pull the flowers sometimes. That was until one day when my mother walked outside and found us both shirtless.
So then I had to go inside and start ironing pillowcases and handkerchiefs. No more yard work for me.
In second grade, we moved from Post, Texas to Lubbock, and we started attending Broadway.
And my daddy and I would get up on Sunday mornings earlier than everybody else,
and we would go to McDonald's on the way to church and have some hot cakes and sausage.
My mom wasn't really interested in athletics at all with four girls,
so I was his plus one until the grandkids came along for all the Red Raider basketball
and football games because he loved the Red Raiders.
The first few weeks of my freshman year at ACU, he would call me every morning at 7:30.
And I was really homesick, y'all.
I was the baby.
I was sheltered.
I was the favorite.
What can I say?
And I missed home.
But I wanted to get away, but then I decided I didn't.
So he would cry.
I would cry.
My roommate would roll her eyes and walk out the door.
And we kind of had gotten a plan together for him to come pick me up and just bring me back to Lubbock.
Until my mother found out.
So when my mother found out, what was he thinking?
They had spent the last 36 years raising four girls.
They were empty nesters.
She immediately, upon coming home from taking me to school, turned my bedroom into her meditation room.
And so there was no more room at the end for Mary Jane.
The calls stopped, but I would get a note in the mail once a week from my dad,
who would tell me, stay the course, all things work for good,
And maybe, just maybe, there would be a $20 bill stuck inside to go get a treat.
You see, my daddy was my hero.
He was my provider, my protector, and my spiritual leader.
I loved him fiercely, and I had no doubt at all that he loved me.
He has been gone for 18 years in just a couple of weeks.
And this September would have been his 100th birthday.
And what I wouldn't give just to be in his arms one more time.
The biggest blessing my parents gave to me was a rich legacy of faith.
It's through that faith that I stand here today with immense gratitude and love for my Heavenly Father.
My rock, my fortress, my refuge, my shepherd.
my redeemer, who loves me unconditionally and everything I need is found in him.
I'm a daddy's girl, but I'm also a child of the King. I see more and more clearly the Lord's deep
desire and his longing to have a relationship with his children. One of the most fulfilling
experiences that I think you can have as a parent or grandparent is going to pick up your child
or traveling far and arriving at their house and them catching your eye and seeing that huge smile
across their face in that dead sprint to run into your arms. Cody Carnes sings a song called Run to
the Father that paints that picture for me and I just want to read you a couple of verses.
"I've carried a burden too long on my own. I wasn't created to bear it alone.
I hear your invitation to let it all go. I see it now. I'm laying it down. I know that I need you.
You saw my condition, had a plan from the start, your son for redemption, the price for my heart.
I don't have a context for that kind of love. I don't understand and I can't comprehend.
All I know is I need you. So I run to the Father. I fall into grace. I'm done with the hiding.
No reason to wait. My heart found a surgeon. My soul found a friend. So I run to the Father
again and again and again." I love Paul's prayer to the Ephesians that Darla shared with us a few
weeks ago. I want to read it to you from the New Living Translation. Ephesians 3, 14 through 20.
"When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and I pray to the Father, the creator of everything in
heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious riches, he will empower you with inner strength
through his spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your heart as you trust him. Your roots will
grow down into God's love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to grasp, as all God's
people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love
of Christ, though it is too great to fully understand. Then you will be made complete with
all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now all glory to God, who is able through
his mighty power to work within us to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or imagine.
Glory to him in the church and Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever. Amen."
Everything about becoming a child of God hinges on absorbing how we are loved.
Think of a sponge.
By itself, it's just a stiff, hard piece of cardboard, but it has lots of little tiny crevices.
If you put it in water and it starts to soak up that water in all of those crevices,
you watch that sponge become full.
It becomes soft, it becomes pliable, and it can fulfill its purpose.
The love I have experienced from my earthly father cannot even begin to compare to the love from my heavenly father.
Let's absorb some of Paul's adjectives about God's love for just a second.
He said, "how long?" Think of your birthday.
The word tells us that before we were ever a thought, God placed his name on us.
He chose us before he ever said, let there be light.
He knows the number of our days before they even come to be.
"How wide"? Christ came to earth as Emmanuel, God with us.
He left his Abba and experienced the pain and loss and death and devastation of our broken world.
He didn't keep it at arm's length.
He felt it fully.
"How high"?
Psalms 103.11 says,
As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for us.
There's no limit to God's love.
And "how deep"?
For God so loved, he gave his son and the hope of eternal life with him.
He loves us so deeply.
He gives us the Holy Spirit to dwell in us.
Available as our helper and comforter, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
I'm reading a book about the Holy Spirit by Anne Graham Lotz, who's Billy Graham's daughter.
It's called The Jesus in Me.
And she says "Jesus had to become visibly absent so that the Holy Spirit could become invisibly present."
You are a child of God.
He chose you.
He created you.
He gave us his son to redeem you.
And if that's not enough, he lives in you.
I don't know if you've seen the latest season of The Chosen.
We were watching that, and there's an episode where there's two beautiful scenes
where Jesus is spending the Last Supper with the disciples,
and he also has a final meal with the women characters in the show,
with Mary, his mother, Mary and Martha.
And in that, they recited a Hebrew prayer called a dienu.
I'd never heard of it before, so I did a little research.
But the scenes will bring tears to your eyes.
So I want to read an adaptation of Da'enu that I did find but not on ChatGPT.
And I think it speaks beautifully about our Father's deep love.
"Most holy God, maker of heaven and earth, so bountiful is your steadfast love that just a little of your glory is more than enough.
If you had just poured out your love in creation, it would have been enough.
If you had revealed yourself through creation but not made a covenant with us, it would have been enough.
If you had made a covenant with us and not entered into relationship with us, it would have been enough.
If you had just been in relationship with us and not fessed over us when we strayed, it would have been enough.
If you had called us to accountability when we strayed and not delivered us from bondage, da'enu.
If you had delivered us from slavery and not led us into the land of freedom, da'enu.
If you had led us into a land of freedom and not sent holy men and women to teach us your way,
Da'enu.
If you had sent us prophets to speak of your love and not sent us a Savior,
it would have been enough.
If you had sent us a Savior and not taken humanity unto yourself,
it would have been enough.
If you had taken humanity unto yourself but not given us a resurrection victory,
it would have been enough. If you had conquered the power of sin but not given us the gift of
the Holy Spirit, it would have been enough. If you had conferred the Holy Spirit but not called
us to participate in your work of redeeming and blessing the world, it would have been enough.
But as it is, most gracious God, you have more than abundantly lavished your goodness upon us.
In Christ Jesus, you revealed the fullness of your love.
His whole life, death, and resurrection testify to the depth of your compassion.
Therefore, we bless you.
We thank you.
We praise you.
For you alone are worthy of our worship.
To you and to Christ and to the Holy Spirit be all the glory, honor, and dominion now and forevermore."
so today as you go about your day i hope that you absorb and receive and that you can rest
in the amazing love of our heavenly father thanks for listening to lcu's podcast
For more content like this, go to lcu.edu.