Hope your day is filled with good news! Burrr it has turned cold and was -11 last night. Today is Donut Day here and I go for a treatment before Bible Study. Tomorrow is a fun party night here!

I was reading today from John’s gospel, and John was closest to Jesus when He was on earth. He called himself, “the one whom Jesus loved.” ((John 13:23) We can all add that for ourselves also, for He loved us enough to die for us! It’s one thing to know that in our minds but does our heart really grab hold of that? If we receive His love, then we will want to naturally share Him with others, but we have to know His love first in our own hearts. We can’t give away something we have not received ourselves.

 Andrew was one of the first disciples who heard John the Baptist tell who Jesus was and you know what he did? It says in John 1:41, “Andrew at once founds his brother Simon and told him, ‘We have found the Messiah (which means ‘Christ’). Andrew brought him to Jesus.” The next day Jesus found Philip who then found Nathanael and of course the list goes on and on. When we find Jesus, we want to share Him with all who will listen. Let us not keep the good news to ourselves but as the song goes, “Go tell it on the mountains, over the hills and everywhere! Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ was born!”

I read a devotional from “Trusting God Day by Day” and it spoke to me about the importance of trusting and moving on with the Lord. Deuteronomy 32 verse 11-12 says, “Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreads its wings to catch them, and carries then on it’s feather, so the Lord led his people.” The mama eagle wants her eaglets to be able to fly but for the first 3 months, she feeds them and they rest in their comfortable nest. But after that she starts dismantling the nest and taking out the soft animal fur, feathers etc. and they begin to get pricked and uncomfortable by the sticks and thorns. She pushes them out of the nest and when they start falling, she is there and swoops under them and catches them. At first, they may wonder what is going on but eventually they understand that mama isn’t being mean but wants them to fly. Eventually rather than rest in the prickly branches of the nest, they learn to fly.

Are there times we feel like the Lord is saying to us, “Time to move on!” But we know that we must face the unknown and not sure if we will like it or will we miss the old. That is where trust comes in, for we put ourselves in the Lord’s hands and have to get out of our comfortable “nest”. At first it feels like we may fall and crash but His wings are there to catch us and help us. As we get acclimated and out of our former rut, we find that flying is fun, we can move ahead and not be in the cramped nest. Let us not hold back when the Lord is nudging us to move on but trust that His wings are always spread to catch up and help us as we learn to fly.

I was reading today from John’s gospel, and John was closest to Jesus when He was on earth. He called himself, “the one whom Jesus loved.” ((John 13:23) We can also add our names to that ourselves, for He loved us enough to die for us! It’s one thing to know that in our minds but does our heart really grab hold of that? If we receive His love, then we will want to naturally share Him with others, but we have to know His love first in our own hearts. We can’t give away something we have not received ourselves.

 Andrew was one of the first disciples who heard John the Baptist tell who Jesus was and you know what he did? It says in John 1:41, “Andrew at once found his brother Simon and told him, ‘We have found the Messiah (which means ‘Christ’). Andrew brought him to Jesus.” The next day Jesus found Philip who then found Nathanael and of course the list goes on and on. When we find Jesus, we want to share Him with all who will listen. Let us not keep the good news to ourselves but as the song goes, “Go tell it on the mountains, over the hills and everywhere! Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born.”

During wilderness times, the Lord may be trying to get our attention and bring us to a deeper level of relationship with Him. So how we respond is important and we need to listen and to obey. Of course, we have only to look back at the children of Israel who were in the wilderness for 40 years as they were being readied to go into the Promise Land. Wow! I don’t have that many years left! It says in Deut. 8:2, that “He did this in order to humble you and test you. He wanted to know whether or not you would wholeheartedly obey His commands.” It is important for all of us to be open as to how the Lord would teach us and test us and be responsive to how He wants to accomplish this. We may be tempted to compromise, quit or take shortcuts but then we will miss letting the wilderness work what the Lord wants to do in us.

To make the most of this Wilderness time, we need time to be alone with the Lord, be in the Word and ask Him to speak to us as we keep our eyes on Him. What is He trying to remind us of to help us stand against the enemy?  May we be willing and open that the Lord can awaken us and plant deep truths in us, helping us to rely solely on Him as He guides us through this time. If we do, we will find that He will transform our wilderness into a beautiful fruitful place.

I read what author Eugene Peterson had to say about these verses as they are not opposites that are contradictory but rather what real life is all about as God puts together. Everything that happens is part of God’s time so then it is the right time, whether it be now to cry and then later to laugh, He is with us in both times of sorrow and joy. Now if you are like me, I would prefer to have the good times rather than times of suffering, but God is with us in each of those times. If we leave Him out of either one of those times, we miss the closeness of His presence and what He may be teaching us.

Let us not exclude certain times in our lives for they may be significant in our growth and maturity. We need both. God is with us in times of health or times of suffering. Lately I have had to pay more attention to my health and getting treatment each week. I can say I am learning things I was not aware of before and have greater empathy for others who have chronic conditions and live in pain. God is also with us when we are working as well in our leisure and if we look forward so much to the time we won’t have to work, we miss what He is teaching us daily in our work. May we be in the season God has us in right this minute and grow closer to Him.