Dear Ones,

Hope you had a great weekend. We enjoyed time with our former Board on Saturday! Today I plan to make cookies on a stick as all mine are just about gone as we served at church yesterday. The paramedic is coming today and I hope to be done with wound care in the near future. So thankful for God’s healing power as I am nearly healed now. PTL!

Devotions from Judy’s heart
All of us might have thought how wonderful it would be if we only experienced seasons of joy and consolation, sensing Jesus’ presence with us all the time. In truth, Christians’ lives often begin that way and we think that is the way it will always be. We may not have known that we will go through times when we feel the Lord has withdrawn from us, as if we are in a desert and all is dry. This is not because God loves us less, rather He wants us to come close to Him and to seek Him by faith. Sadly, many who are not taught this end up feeling like they are falling apart and failing, so they try even harder in their own strength. But that is not what God is after, for He wants us to be totally dependent on Him.

The Lord desires to mature us, so we become strong in Him and do not give up when such times of desolation come to us. It is not His intent that we try to fix things ourselves, but that we see how much we need Him and depend on Him. We are not to live simply by our senses, but to seek after the Lord, even when we have no feelings. Paul says in Col 3:3, ”For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Our Christian life becomes a hidden life, where we don’t live by our senses but by faith. As I write these thoughts, it reminds me of when we were first married and Al and I could hardly bear to be apart. He still had to go to class at Augsburg and I still had to take care of patients at the hospital, but we could hardly wait to get home to one another. Of course, life goes on, and we had children, responsibilities and had to function even when we were tired and got up at night with crying babies. That was more of a test of our love, for it wasn’t all warm feelings, but showing love even when we would rather just curl up and take a nap.

Life with the Lord isn’t all seasons of breathless joy and sunny circumstances, but drawing close to Him when skies are cloudy and dark. No, Christians are not always happy, but He gives us more than sunshine so we can stand strong in Him when life gets hard. Charles Spurgeon said there isn’t a believer who can always sing a song of joy. Maybe we had a season of joy at first, because we were a raw recruit and couldn’t be put in the roughest part of the battle. But he goes on to say that we were like a tender plant that He nursed in the hot-house until we were strong and could stand severe weather.

Challenge for today: When going through dry times, know that the Lord is weaning you away from lesser things to find your all in Him.
Blessings on your week and prayers and love, Judy