All About HIM

What’s it all About?

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment

“I go late because I don’t like the music.”
“I don’t like how our preacher seems to preach the same message every week.”
“I want to make my kids happy. They want a church with a better youth group.”

I’m pretty sure that, after decades of actively serving God, I’ve heard it all. There’s one big problem with all of these statements – the word I. Want to know a secret – that isn’t a secret? Church isn’t about us, what we want, or what we like.

I mean, seriously. Do you think every Israelite man wanted to make the trip to Jerusalem to worship as they were commanded to do? Man is the same throughout the ages, so I’m pretty comfortable saying, “No.” Some of those men didn’t want to make the trek to Jerusalem just as surely as many men today don’t want to make the trip to church on Sunday morning. So why did they go?

Because they knew it wasn’t about them, that it was about God and the worship He deserves as God. No matter how many miles they had to walk hauling livestock for sacrifice, no matter how much they hated crowds and noise, no matter how long they would have to wait in line, no matter if they knew going in that they wouldn’t enjoy themselves at all…IT WASN’T ABOUT THEM.

In 1 Cor. 12:18, we are told that God plants us in the church as He wills. We want to pick and choose our churches like we select our food at a buffet. God wants us to attend the churches He has selected for us. And yes, we may at times disagree with His choices.

We may think the church is too far away, we may not like the music at all, we may resent parents letting their kids be noisy in service, we may feel we could have found a better sermon on TV… None of that matters. What matters is that God has told us, “Here. This is your spiritual home. LIVE in it.” If He hasn’t told you that, didn’t lead you to the church you’re in, go talk to Him about it. Now.

If He did lead you to your current church, He put you there for at least one reason. Just like a good gardener studies soil content, sunlight, and other factors before setting a prized plant in the ground, God carefully selected where He planted you. If you dislike things about where you are, don’t whine about it to the other plants or, worse yet, try to dig up your own roots and move. Talk to Him about it.

You may well – probably will – be surprised by what He has to say. He may be pointing out needs in the church that He wants you to help meet. He may be working on expanding your horizons of what you like. He may point out that you don’t eat only two meals a week and shouldn’t rely strictly on your pastor for your spiritual nourishment. He might simply explain that it’s time you get over your self because church isn’t about you at all.

It’s about Him. It’s about bringing our week-wearied bodies to the sanctuary as a sacrifice of worship. It’s about lifting our hearts to Him in worship and praise whether the song is a hundred years old or ten minutes old. It’s about intentionally ignoring distractions and focusing on what He is trying to say to you – not only through the sermon, but through every part of the experience.

When we shift our focus off ourselves and whether or not someone in pre-worship fellowship took the chocolate-covered donut we wanted, and turn it to the One who is the whole reason we are on this planet in the first place, our walks with God will change radically.

THAT is what it’s all about!

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

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What’s Your Motivation?

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment

I did an in-depth study many years ago and reached a very important conclusion.

WHAT I do is important. Getting into God’s Word, learning what He wants me to do, and making sure I do the right thing… Important. But even more important than WHAT I do is WHY I do it.

In other words, motivation is everything. God doesn’t just want our actions to be right, our appearance and performance to be acceptable; He wants our hearts to be right. I can go to church, hug my neighbors, raise my hands in worship, give liberally in the offering… but if my heart isn’t in it, if I’m only going through the motions so I’ll look good to others or satisfy some legalistic need inside of me, I’M WRONG.

And if I’m wrong, the only thing I need to be doing is getting right. It’s time for me to go to Him and ask for His forgiveness and help, to pray with the psalmist, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” [Psalm 51:10 (KJV)]

Celebrating Jesus!

Tammy C

PS: The verse in the graphic is from the NLT.

“I can tell you he’s not brain dead.”

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment

No one wants to hear the words “brain dead” in relation to anyone they know. No one wants to think about the implications. Not wanting something doesn’t keep it from happening.

On Sunday evening, April 30th, my husband inhaled his dinner and nothing I tried helped. The EMTs got there quickly, and shortly after they got him into the ambulance the food obstructed his airway completely and he went into cardiac arrest.

I learned this after I arrived at the hospital, where I was told that the EMT’s had been doing CPR on him when he arrived, and they had his heart beating again within two to three minutes after getting him into the ER. They’d also removed the obstruction and intubated him. I’m ignorant – was ignorant – enough about such matters that I didn’t realize what wasn’t being said until two hours later.

Mind you, I got people praying right away!

Roughly two hours later, the Intinsivist called me aside and explained the situation. For a young man in good health, you have about 2 minutes of oxygen loss to the brain before you have to worry about brain damage. For a man Jack’s age, and with his medical history, you have 11-12 seconds. They’d been working on him for somewhere between two and six minutes. Also, Jack had yet to regain consciousness, his pupils were dilated, and they were only sluggishly responding to light.

In other words, the doctor wasn’t telling me Jack might have brain damage. He was telling he would have brain damage; it was only a matter of how much. This was when he told me, “I can tell you he’s not brain dead. We have seen signs of brain activity.”

I can’t even begin to explain what I felt at that point. I went to see him as they prepared to chill his body to alleviate the damage as much as possible. They were prepping for other things as well, so I got ready for a move to the ICU waiting room.

Again, prayer warriors were lifting him up. Also, I had some strong support in the room with me, which was good since it was 12:30 AM before we heard anything else.

At that point, another doctor came and got my sister and me. He asked if I knew what all they’d planned to do and I gave him the list, ending with, “and…put him on ice.” (I still can’t remember what they called it.)

“Yes,” he responded, nodding. “On that, there’s been a change of plan. We’ve had him sedated, of course, because of the intubation, but a little while ago he awoke on his own. He’s groggy, but responding to our commands. We won’t be instituting ________ protocols.”

I HAD to clarify. “You’re saying you see no reason to think there’s brain damage.”

“Right,” he agreed as he opened the door.

His ICU nurse told me repeatedly, “You have no idea how lucky he is!” Jack was one of three of the five choking patients they’d had recently who had lived. The two they lost died because of the very lack of oxygen Jack experienced. But…

By 4:00 the next afternoon, he had been moved to a regular room. Two days later, he was transported to rehab. Seven days after that, I took him home. Yesterday, on May 17, the man they expected to either die or come out of this a vegetable walked into church.

But. God.

May 20 EDIT/ADDITION

We saw his primary care today. I’d texted him immediately after my first meeting with the nurse. 

He looked at Jack and said, “What I did not tell your wife is that, when I got that first text, I knew you were gone.”

And again I say…

But. God. 

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

The One Year Bible for Women

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment


I’ve shared before about the great value I find in reading through the Bible, and I’m currently reading it through again. This time God had me pull out The One Year Bible for Women in the New Living Translation.

I’ve never even considered reading this format before. I felt it would make for too choppy a read, that it would interrupt the flow of the text to such an extent that I would get little out of it. I was mistaken.

This Bible offers itself up in daily readings that include passages from the Old Testament, the New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs. I’ve discovered that this works quite well as no one section is so long that it gets boring, and having Psalms and Proverbs broken up into such small bites really gives them the attention they deserve.

I still believe it’s vitally important to read through the Bible chronologically at least once, preferably two or three times, but I had to come confess that I find this to be an exceptionally good reading plan as well.

Celebrating Jesus!

Tammy C

No Turning Back

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment

You can’t afford to go backwards. You have too many people following you!

My pastor said these words this morning, and they seared my soul. We tend to think that what we do is our own business and only our own business. We think wrongly.

The Bible refers to us as being surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. We are. As Christians, we can never forget that we are being watched. We are being watched by those in the church. We are being watched by those in the world. But we are not merely being WATCHED. We are being FOLLOWED.

There are those who simply watch me, I’m sure, but there are others-often I don’t know who they are-who are watching me and following my example. If I’m walking in the right direction, setting them a good example, great. If I’m not, their blood may well be on my hands.

It’s a sobering thing to consider, this influence that we have. What if we consider something to be perfectly fine, but someone watching us believes it to be sin? Drinking is a good example here. Many Christians see nothing wrong with drinking while others consider it sin. If one who considers it sin is influenced by one who considers it not sin and chooses to drink, then in his own heart he has committed sin. Who is responsible for his sin?

Paul addresses this in 1 Cor. 8:10-13. His context is eating food offered to idols, but the principle remains. See, in particular, verses 12 and 13. [AMP]

And when you sin against your brethren in this way, wounding and damaging their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.

Therefore, if [my eating a] food is a cause of my brother’s falling or of hindering [his spiritual advancement], I will not eat [such] flesh forever, lest I cause my brother to be tripped up and fall and to be offended.

I cannot afford to do anything but move onward, forward, with God. I truly can’t afford to go backwards, to backslide, to drag my feet-or even to do something that makes it appear that I am. If I do, and if in doing I lead others to do likewise, I can get myself in a heap of trouble.

Celebrating Jesus!

Tammy C

Just as the Lord had Commanded

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment

In reading Exodus 15:16-32, we see one phrase repeated many times.

…just as the Lord had commanded him.

Moses is setting up the Tabernacle and we see in these words that he has learned a great truth. We aren’t called simply to do what God tells us to; we are called to do it “just as the Lord has commanded.” It is for us to live our lives not by our own standards, but by His.

Because Moses paid such close attention to God’s commands…

Then the cloud covered the Tabernacle, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. Moses could no longer enter the Tabernacle because the cloud had settled down over it, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle.

Oh, that we could reach this place!

Celebrating Jesus!

Tammy C

The Next Show Starts In…

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment

You walk in the door carrying your take-out coffee and get offended when you’re told you’ll have to leave it outside. You let your cell phone ring repeatedly. You let your child wander around. When you can tell it’s getting close to the end you start gathering your stuff together, and right before the official end you walk out the door.

It’s all pretty standard behavior in a movie theater, but I’m talking about church. I’ve seen all of this through the years, and much more, and it sickens me that we’ve reached a place culturally where such behavior is acceptable (by some) even in God’s house.

People leaving during the altar call is the worst. There are souls hanging in the balance. If we really are Christians we should be praying for those around us. Unfortunately too many seem to think they’re in a theater and the altar call is like the credits: Let’s leave now to beat the rush.

Celebrating Jesus anyway!

Tammy C