December 23, 2020

Dear Ones,

Hope you are having a good day of preparation for Christmas. It is very blustery out and we are choosing to stay in today as it continues to snow and blow.  I was busy in the kitchen this morning making pie, cauliflower potatoes, egg dishes and 2 kinds of cookies. Tomorrow we are going to Canaan to be with Ann’s family for Christmas celebration. We plan to get home again in time for the Christmas service at church. 

Devotions from Judy’s heart

Do we see the world around us from God’s perspective or our own limited one? Could it be that  our own way of seeing things gets clouded by our attitudes of negative thinking, anger, jealousy, and unfulfilled desires? Maybe we evaluate ourselves better than we ought! Paul said in Romans 12:3 (NRSV), “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than  you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned to  you.” It’s good to have healthy self-esteem as our identity is in the Lord, but we must not overestimate ourselves by using worldly standards. You may have seen online, the comic strip of the woman sitting by her husband and looking out their window. She notices that her neighbor’s wash hanging on the line looked dirty. (That was back in the days when women hung their wash outside to dry in the fresh breeze) She wondered if her neighbor didn’t know how to wash clothes or if she needed a different laundry detergent as her wash always looked gray. But one day she noticed a big change as her neighbor’s wash looked sparkling clean and she wondered what happened. Her husband solved the mystery and piped up to say that he had gotten up early and cleaned their window! What a revelation! What we see in others is dependent on the clarity of our own windows through which we look, and we must be careful not to judge. Perhaps what we see in others doesn’t define them as much as it defines us. What is in our own hearts is what we need to deal with. The closer we draw to the Lord, the more we will see things from His perspective and not our own limited one that is distorted by the things that we need to take care of. When the Lord shows us things in our own lives that need to change, let us be quick to repent and let Him cleanse us so His light can shine through us.

Challenge for today: Be sensitive to the Holy Spirit as He shows you what needs to change in your life.