January 10, 2023

Dear Ones,

  Hope you have a good day and stay warm and snug. It is rather misty out and looks like it is trying to snow here. I just made a  pan of choc chip toffee bars that we would love to sample but it is going to church and all 24 pieces are needed!  I am going downstairs shortly for coffee and choc covered raspberries! 

Devotions from Judy’s heart

   We can glean things from others but we also have to do things for ourselves! I became more aware of this when I was waking from a dream and asked the Lord what it meant. I believe God speaks to us in our dreams, as He often did in the lives of those recorded in scripture., and we need to pay attention to them. In my dream I was in a large place where tables of different types of merchandise was being sold. I love to shop and picked up different things here and there and one of them was just pieces of material that had been precut but had to be sewn together.  I asked if there were sewing machines in that enormous building that I could do that, but they said, “No, you have to go home and do it on your own sewing machine!” I bought the material and went home to sew and then woke asking the Lord what He was saying.

   Immediately, thoughts came to me of how we grow spiritually and shop here and there by listening to preachers online, reading spiritual books, going to seminars etc. We glean from others and it may stimulate some growth within us; but we can’t neglect going home and have personal time with the Lord. We need to pay attention to our hearts and have worship time, quiet to listen to Him, read His Word with an open heart etc. We need to clear out those things that just take up room but hinder our growth. Only we ourselves can make that decision and that happens in the quiet of our own hearts.

   In my devotions right after contemplating my dream, I read from Psalm 73:28 , “But as for me, how good it is to be near God! I have made the sovereign Lord my shelter and I will tell everyone about the wonderful things you do.”  It is so good to be close to God, and that means time to know Him for ourselves… it’s not just a sermon we heard or a message from a Christian author, it is what we heard God speak to our hearts. We can have all kinds of spiritual knowledge and still have a cold distant heart. Let us take personal time with the Lord and draw near to Him!

Challenge for today: Spend 10 minutes just quiet before the Lord and listen to His words to you.