Month: October 2023 (Page 2 of 4)

  One of the most important things we can do in our families is to teach God’s word to our children.  I read today how Timothy was taught the scriptures from his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice.  Paul tells Timothy to “continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” (II Tim. 3:14-15)

I jumped the gun yesterday to wish you a happy weekend, so today I hope you have as super one! We are heading for the lake this morning to celebrate Leif’s birthday early and to see our nephew and 2 nieces. We plan to stop on the way to see a friend at Assisted Living too. It should be a beautiful ride with all the color. 

   I was reading from Acts 2:25-28 (God’s Word) where Peter is speaking to the new believers who had just been filled by the Holy Spirit. He quotes what David said in Psalm 16, “I always see the Lord in front of me. I cannot be moved because He is by my side. That is why my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. My body also rests securely because you have not abandoned my soul to the grave or allow your holy one to decay. You make the path of life known to me. In your presence there is complete joy.”

  Our deepest joy and outlook on life doesn’t come from external things but it is found in a person…the person of Jesus. We have only to look at people who have everything, great wealth and fame, but if they don’t know the Lord, they have not found complete joy. They can keep searching and buying more things, but it leaves them feeling empty. The source of our joy is Jesus and we experience joy as we are in His presence.

   If we are to enjoy someone, we need to get to know them and to spend time together, to talk with them and share our hearts. David said in Psalm 27 that he will seek the face of the Lord and he will not rush but wait for the Lord. We will find as we also do that, we experience the joy of His presence. He has so much to say to us through His Word so it is important that we spend time each day letting the Word speak to us. But it is also important to be quiet and just listen and let Him love us. I know I need to do that more and too often I jump into my day without just spending quiet moments listening.

  The chorus to a song by Sandi Patty goes, “In your presence there is comfort/ In your presence there is peace/ When we seek to know Your heart/ We will find such blessed assurance/ In Your holy presence Lord.” Let these words be your prayer today.

We have lived almost 5 years at Northern Lakes and both Al and I have a big closet. Mine has a door on both sides of the closet and only one light bulb in the light fixture. All this time I have contended with not being able to see well to know if the shades of colors go well together or to read papers that I have stored in the closet file etc. So I would take the items out into the light in our bedroom to discern. But one day we asked maintenance man to come as we had several light bulbs going out in our high ceiling fixtures. I asked Greg to also replace the one in my closet and he not only put in two bulbs but had to take the fixture apart to fix it. When I came back to the apartment my closet was full of light and I thought, why didn’t I do something about this before.

How much of our Christian lives are lived more on the shadowy edge rather than in the center of the Light? We know Jesus but we don’t commit everything into His hands. The world subtlety creeps in, and even though we may have a feeling that things are not quite right, we may not do anything about it. When we live in the shadows though it erodes our faith. Perhaps we want to be spiritually mature in record time and don’t want to go through the slower training as His follower. Deep faith life does not just happen in an instant but more like being an apprentice as we learn from the Lord, the Word, and from mature Christians. But maybe we’d rather take a shortcut like taking a fast course or some new study method and skip the slower maturing process. It doesn’t work that way for it’s not all about obtaining information about God, but being in relationship with Him and learning as we walk and talk and work together. We let Him lead for He is the teacher and we are only the apprentice.

We need to keep our eyes on the Lord and learn from Him who is gentle and lowly in heart (Matt. 11:29). The only way we can do that is to walk as children of Light, enjoying His presence and learning from Him wherever He leads us and for however long it takes.

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Happy weekend! It looks to be raining all day so some plans may need to be changed. I like to bake on such days and fill the house with aroma. Tonight, I have a Women’s Night out at church with a speaker and pie and fellowship. 

 In the Body of Christ much damage is done when anger is let loose into rage and leaves the other persons wounded. Words are said that can’t be taken back and they leave a negative feeling in the hearts of all who are recipients of the anger. It is a stealer of unity in the church and we must guard against emotional outbursts of wounding words. Yes, there will be differences but we are given ways to handle them in a righteous way.

Sometime we can put ourselves in stressful positions by having too heavy of a schedule. We can’t seem to ever catch up and then when things pile up, we burst out in anger at those closest to us. Maybe we need more sleep or it could be the Lord is telling us that we need to pare down as He hasn’t called us to do all those things that are stressing us out, even if they are good. It helps when we just tell our loved ones we are facing a deadline and let them know we are under pressure. It may cause them to be more accommodating with us and cut us slack. One night recently Al said he was very tired, and he felt “crabby” and he would be fine later when he had a chance to rest. It put us on the same team, and I appreciated that.

Of course, the first person we can all go to when we are stressed and feel anger building up is to the Lord. If we will give our concerns to Him and all the emotions with it, He will shoulder our burden and give us His peace. Let us go first to Him and not wait until we have done damage to others.