Dear Ones,
Hope you are having a wonderful weekend and time to get refreshed! This morning I am going to clean the apartment and do food prep and some writing.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
  Left to ourselves, we can really mess up our lives. We are told by our culture to do whatever we want and to please ourselves, but when God is left out of the equation, we are left with a life that is empty and messy. We are warned to not conform to this world (Rom. 12:2) but to fix our attention on God and be shaped in the way God has for us.

  I was reading today from Isaish 26 and Isaiah tells us that when we trust the Lord and stick to the way He has cut out for us, we will have perfect peace. We can trust Him for He is our rock and secure place and gives us a level smooth path to walk on. He will guide us and help us live by godly principles and character to do what is right. I thought of the cabin at the lake, and as a child I stuck to the paths that were well worn rather than to get lost by going off on my own. Especially at night, I never veered off the path to the outhouse and walked as quickly as I could!  When we choose to go off the path God has, we encounter thorns and briers and lose our peace. We need to keep our minds on the Lord, or we will find that our hearts become anxious. We wander off when we focus on the turmoil in our land and wonder what will happen in the future; or we get overwhelmed by a deadline at work or weighted down by all our responsibilities at home. When this happens, our focus has slipped from the Lord, and we need to stop and refocus and as it says in verse 4, “So trust in the Lord (commit yourselves to Him. Lean on Him, hope confidently in Him} forever; for the Lord God is an everlasting Rock (the Rock of Ages).” He is our solid place, our refuge, and when we trust in Him totally, nothing can move us either. We won’t be veering off the path, getting into the poison of the world. When we walk the Paul Bunyan trail we stick to the path as surprisingly there is poison ivy right alongside of it. I had wanted to pick raspberries last summer, but I noticed they were right in the midst of the poison ivy. No thank you!

  Let us commit ourselves to the Lord and keep to the path He has laid out for us! No detours or side roads that end up in dead ends, just the level road He lays out for us. Then we can experience peace and rest confidently in our Rock!
Challenge for today: Before going down a road that looks enticing, check with the Lord first.
Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy