I received a bad report from my Dr.: my best friend just died; I am overdrawn at the bank; I feel lousy.

It’s not always chin up and be in good spirits.  We live in a fallen and broken world in which joy can easily elude us.  Our minds, bodies and souls are at war with the chaos around us.  We all struggle to hold onto joy as we move through our days. 

Remember the old hymn about counting your blessings?   “Count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will remind you of what the Lord has done. “

Sometimes, we must press the pause button ….., slow down, and declutter the spaces in our lives to see the simple blessings we’ve been given.  We must mindfully direct our hearts, souls, and bodies toward the good and beautiful around us, to push back the cloudy shadows of the darkness that cover our eyes. 

We are told to live intentionally.  How is that done?  Start with the little blessings.  The sky is blue, the postman brought a new magazine; I got a message from an old friend; my kids just sent a picture, I hear a bird singing, that first cup of coffee in the morning!

Each item is so simple, but they are each packed with promise and joy to make each day meaningful. 

Many times, we are simply overwhelmed with life. We must step back, pause, say a prayer, be aware of small blessings; then move on.

Investing in my own wellbeing becomes a part of investing in family, friends, faith and the future.

Joyful living takes nothing for granted and aspires us to see the One who made it all and give Hm thanks for all He has done.

                                               Now that is Joyful.

I must admit to being fearful.  I am a big sissy.  I hate going to Drs and Dentists.  Will I slip or fall?   My ears aren’t good.  What did she say?  Little things make me fearful.

I think fears come to all of us at times.   It’s down deep.  On the surface we say and do and act fearlessly but lurking in the shadows of our minds are the “what Ifs”.  God doesn’t want us to walk haphazardly into situations, but He also doesn’t want us to live our lives in fear. 

Mostly we face fears that are unknown or that even what we think we know.
We try to outguess our situation even before we know the truth.

When reading many of the Psalms that David composed, we know how fearful he was.  He had enemies that wanted to take his life.  His nemesis was King Saul, the very man whom he tried to help. He prayed for protection.  Yes, he too, was fearful.  His life was always in danger. 

When Joshua became the new leader of the Hebrews, Moses told him. “” Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid or terrified because of them for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave your nor forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6)

What words of comfort they brought to Joshua.  He was to be the new leader of this rag tag group of people.  But he held onto the words of Moses.  He must have been fearful but knew that God was speaking to him through Moses. 

God speaks to us through the Bible.  Those early disciples were fearful, yet they risk their lives for the Messiah.  He gave them the courage to overcome their fear.  They all died terrible deaths and not without fear but knowing something better awaited them.

You and I can be aware that God is with us in our fears.  Yes, they are there.  Yes, we are fearful.  He knows our fears. He knows we are afraid.  Its OK.

We can face them because whatever they are, God knows.
                                          Face your fears, fearlessly!

Of course we love God!  We all say we love God.  How do we understand the first of the commandments?  “Loving God with all your heart, soul and strength.”  That means everything we possess as humans. 

We can’t be made to love.  You either do or you don’t.  How do we fulfill this commandment?

To understand, you must listen.  To listen is to remove your personal understanding and feeling of the subject and hear it from the other person’s perspective exclusively. 

                                         So, it is with God.

To understand God, we often interrupt His words to our understanding.  We make God in our image and not the other way around. 

Did God really say that?  Perhaps He means something else. 

Knowing God is not really possible.  However, we can still love God.  We don’t understand His ways.  It is why we have faith.  Faith that somehow God is involved with what is happening to us and the world. 

Loving God is more than listening to His words.  To love God truly is be involved with His work in this world.

   Love involves action! 

                             Christianity grew because of action.

As the Apostle James said  (2:17), “Love without works is dead. You prove your love by your works. “ 

                                   That’s how we love God!

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.

This passage reminds us to acknowledge God’s sovereignty and what He  is allowing— not causing but allowing— and that we can trust Him to bring about His plans for us. 

 By holding onto that passage, we can consider whatever chaotic situation we face as an opportunity to increase our faith.   Of course we question why God allows these frustrations in our lives.  I’m a good person, so why can’t I just avoid these hurtful things?

God’s ways are not only different from our ways.  He sees the whole scope of our life.   Remember that He is God and you and I are not.

Paul’s letter to the Romans states “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.  

This it is our assurance that—He will turn our frustrations into something that is needful for us.

Each of us has special needs.  Yours are different from mine.  Patience in my caregiving, a bratty kid, a neighbor who plays music too loud; a barking dog down the street; my painful knee! The list goes on!

Frustrations also involves something we hesitate to do.  Surrender…… that we surrender to Him.   The key here is to surrender.  What is God trying to tell me?

 Bring to God your frustrating situation, surrender it to Him, and acknowledge that He can use it to make you and me a better person.   By reading this verse, we won’t be looking for the blessings to come from the frustration itself but rather looking at what God is doing in our life. 

Many times, our frustration stems from having waited or continually praying for something, and God has not yet delivered. So, our frustration may be just an insistence on our own plan or our wants rather than God’s determination of what is best for us.

 If you and I are praying for a good thing, and God is still withholding it, then either it’s not a good thing for us, or it isn’t time.  When God withholds, it’s because He is waiting for the proper time or He’s waiting with something far better than we can imagine.  We are winning by waiting.  We are accepting His will in our life. 

                                        Trust Him in the midst of your frustration.

                                     Our frustrations might be just what we need!  

                                 I can do all this through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4;13) 

As I read this letter of Paul to those who have become believers in the Jewish Messiah, I realize they were facing unimaginable persecution and trials.  These new Believers have found something in this man, Jesus, that caused them to leave the Roman pantheon of gods to embrace a newfound faith.  They were willing to die for that faith. 

Paul, himself, through a miraculous conversion, found himself the object of ridicule and persecution. Yet he was able to write with a firm conviction, that those who stand firm will receive their reward in the world to come.

We too, face a world that has become secular and non-believing.  Our children have been seduced by the social media of lies and distortions of the Christian world view.   It seems that the evil inclinations of the heart have taken control of thousands.  Bombings, murder, various assaults, have become the norm in dealing with controversy. Violence now replaces meaningful dialogue. 

I found this poem written by DJ Ediger that is meaningful to all of us.  She expresses the idea, that, Yes………. all things are possible to those of us who have become Christians. I hope this encourages you as it did me.  (I have edited her poem and added my own thoughts)

 When mountains, rise too steep to climb,
 When hope seems lost, there is no time,
  I draw my strength from Christ above,
 Empowered by His boundless love.
Through trials, fierce and storms that roar,
 His power lifts, I am restored.
 With faith in Him, I can face each day.
 All things are possible, I say!
 Not my might , but by His grace,
            I find His will.
 With every trial, He makes a way,
 Renewing my spirit, day by day.
  So, I press on, my heart secure,
Through Christ, all things I can endure.
For in His strength my hope remains,
 A victory sure, a faith secure.

  This is not my usual blog.  But very timely.  Its probably more political than most of my writing but at the same time, about which all of us should be concerned.  We are fast becoming a nation, that was once founded on Chrisitan values and now have a generation that have left the roots of their faith and embraced a secular lifestyle.  I have enough faith to be believe that perhaps the assassination of Charlie Kirk should awaken the Chrisitan community.  Sitting in our quiet pews on Sunday, does not fulfill the Gospel.  Our preachers aren’t helping to arouse our community of Believers and making them activists in our fight against the evils of our society.  What are you and I doing? 

                                                Copied directly from Church Reset

“People who have no interest in religion are seeing the evil in the world and they want to see it defeated. Then, they look to churches and often find that the churches are pretending the evil doesn’t exist. Many non-Christians have a better grasp of spiritual warfare as it currently stands than a number of our ministers do.

We can preach on the Psalms and see words like wickedness, evil, and iniquity. We can teach Jesus’ proclamations of coming judgment. We can read Paul’s words about how our battle is against spiritual forces of darkness, and how we must tear down strongholds. But if we can’t tie them to real-world events, it’s all abstract.

If a husband and father can be shot for his opinions, or a woman can be stabbed in cold blood by a man arrested and released 14x thanks to a failing criminal justice system, and everyone has seen it, and yet we can’t assure people that they are absolutely right to notice the evil, and God notices it too, what are we doing?

When we’re given obvious examples like the ones we’ve seen in the last few weeks, we must stand up and point to them and say “THAT—that’s what God is talking about. That’s the wickedness we should be praying for Him to bring down.” And when we do, the people who are seeking God will see that they have come to the right place.

And as an aside, generic “evil is bad, let’s all just come together” sermons aren’t helping either,

People need to know when the fields are white unto harvest, and why

Since Kirk’s murder, countless people have posted online that they would be returning to church, or picking up a Bible, or both. Rallies have broken out literally around the world, many including sing-alongs to Amazing Grace and chants of “CHRIST IS KING.”

When Jesus saw the people were desperately seeking and in need, He told His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore, beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest” (Matthew 9:37-38).

Again, people are looking for an answer to the evils of this world, and there is enough left of cultural Christianity for them to know that Jesus is that answer. If we aren’t seizing on that opportunity and game planning how to have these discussions when they are as easy as they’ve been in recent memory, what are we doing?

People need to know how their Sunday affects their Monday

I was once in a church men’s meeting that veered away from discussing the building’s upkeep and the congregation’s bank account into brainstorming how we could evangelize better. A brother cut in across the discussion to remind us, “Guys, we’re here to talk about the business of the church. If you want to discuss this stuff, you can do it on your own time.”

As shocking as that was, I feel the same way when somebody responds to “Should we mention this enormous, morally significant story?” with “No, we just preach the Gospel.” What do you even think the Gospel is, if it precludes discussions of how to address sin’s stranglehold on the world?

Christ is Lord over all of life. He died for our sins and the sins of the whole world, and He rose again to take all authority and to sit at the Father’s right hand and rule all that is His. If we can’t connect the dots for people and show them how His Lordship extends into the most pressing matters of our day, we are telling them that their Christianity is a neat little part of their lives they can fold up and put inside a box, separate from every other part.

Conclusion

How we handle it is going to look different from church to church, but we would be remiss if we failed to take such an obvious opportunity to make the Bible come to life for our people, to tell the lost why they have come to the right place, and ultimately to point everyone in the room to the Lordship of Christ.”

I might add: We all can make a difference.  Mainly by contacting our Congress people, by letting them know how you feel, supporting our local police and officers, the ICE, who are there to keep us safe! It’s more than sitting in our pews on Sunday.  It means activism and that can be messy!…………………     Barbara

I enjoy sitting outside with that first cup, looking at the sky, realizing that blessings are all around me.  Living in Memphis, we are delighted in many days of beautiful fluffy clouds.  As a kid, I used to find animals or people in those clouds. 

Even computers get into the act.   My writings are now in the Cloud, somewhere in cyber space but still there long after I’m gone! 

God uses clouds throughout scripture.  These are Biblical clouds, and God uses them in a special way.

In Genesis, God tells Noah and his family that a rainbow in a cloud will serve as a sign of His covenant with humanity and a promise to never again destroy the world with a flood. 

 On Mt Sinai, Moses went up into the mountain and the clouds covered him. At one point his face glowed from his encounter with God and a type of veil or cloud covered his face. 

Clouds guided the people as they fled Egypt, and a cloud led them in the desert.  It appears as a pillar of fire by night. Jewish Rabbis say this was God’s angel hidden in the cloud.  Perhaps it was the Messiah himself, since He was always present with his people, through their unfaithfulness or their redemption.

 In the New Testament, Jesus himself used clouds in His teaching.

1. Matthew 26:64, “Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
2. Matthew 17:5 ^“While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; and I with him  well pleased. Listen to him!”
3. Revelation 10:1 Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven. He was robed in a cloud, with a rainbow above his head; his face was like the sun, and his legs were like fiery pillars.
4.  Revelation 11: 12   They heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies looked on.

Clouds play a part in describing power and strength. They both reveal and conceal.  On one hand, they are an expression of God’s glory, but at the same time our vision on earth might be “cloudy”.

            Soon the clouds will vanish, and we shall see Him as He is!

                                             Try cloud gazing!

Hey God, it’s me!  I have prayed and prayed for this to happen.  Aren’t you listening? Don’t you care?  You seem to answer the prayers of others, why not mine?  Am I a bad person?  Are you angry with me?  What do I need to do now?

Have you ever felt that God just isn’t hearing your prayers?  You have waited and waited and prayed but no answer is forth coming. 

God is in this!  He is still there and wants our best.  Perhaps you and I are overlooking His greater gifts…….. family, friends, our community of faith. 

Just maybe while we’re waiting for that something to change, waiting for that answer to prayer, God wants us to open our eyes to the blessings He has already given.

 The Lord blesses us all differently, but He certainly blesses us all, without fail, without end.  It’s just that you and I take many of His blessings for granted.

He offers a bounty of treasures and blessings for our sight and soul through His creation.  He extends multitudes of more mercy and grace than we can grasp or deserve.  He releases more peace and joy in His presence than we can perceive.  He offers lavish love like no other.  Perhaps more than we can sense or see.   

If our visible world falls short of our expectations, or looks less than those around you, focus on His gifts, expecting that He knows exactly what is best for us. 

Through failing health, disappointments, hardships, we need to realize that answers to our prayers may not always come at our timetable. 

It’s the waiting seasons in our life that actually makes us stronger, and braver and more resilient than ever. 

It’s in our waiting season that we find the greatest connection to the One who loves us best!

                                                Just you wait!!!

It’s my regular day.  I do try to say a brief prayer when getting up.  But then it seems I need extra help. 

                                                Where did I put my phone?
                                                 I forgot to buy eggs for breakfast
                                                 What’s that new ache in my knee?
                                               My cup runneth over but not in a good way!

Perhaps you can add to this list.  It often goes downhill from there. But wait,

                God’s mercy is new every morning……….and it lasts and lasts. 

You and I need to be reminded that His eye is on the sparrows….That’s us.
He didn’t promise us easy living.  Life is full of upsets, and unhappiness.  You and I can’t escape.  We are part of this world.  We live in a world of chaos and unrest.

I read the gospels.   Those early disciples.  What they had to endure makes my life seem easy.  Each one seemed to suffer horrible deaths.  The apostle, John, was spared but was left on a lonely island. He had visions about which he wrote in his revelations.  Some new believers saved those writings and passed them on.  Amazing……. how God could use mere people in revealing His plans for us.  He sent His is very own son. One who stands in our place.   One who was without sin.  One who willingly gave His own life for us.   

When we pray, do we know how to interpret God’s answers to our prayers?  Do we know what to look for and listen for?  What to anticipate? His answers don’t always come in ways we expect. Scripture assures us God answers our prayers, but do we look for His reply in the fabric of our everyday lives?  Do we hear Him in His Word, through a friend, out in nature, or through a seeming coincidence that echoes an answer to our request? 

.                                        Stop, Look and Listen!  Look for blessings!

                                               He’s there for us and His Mercies are forever!

Be honest. What’s the very first thing you do in the morning?   Hit the snooze button?   Check email?   Head straight for the coffee.  Well, you aren’t alone.  I rarely can get my thoughts together unless I have that first cup. 

But wait.  Perhaps you and I need to be reminded that we were able to get up at all, we are alive, and we have another day ahead of us. 

Unless you are a real morning person, getting out of a warm bed and starting your day is tough to do.  And this is specifically why you and I need to start our day with prayer. 

Words don’t come easily but that’s not the point.  God doesn’t need words.  He merely wants us to think of Him as we start our day. 

The Jewish rabbis have an interesting thought.  That sleep is 1/60 of death.  That our souls can depart but return when we wake up.  There are no guarantees to wake up in the morning, but when we do, it’s only proper that we take a moment to express gratitude for another day, for another opportunity to live our lives. 

Its rather ironic and unfortunate that that of many of us groan in annoyance, that we must get up, without recognizing the incredible blessing that we are able and that God has kept us safe during the night. Many others may not have that privilege.

So instead of praying for ourselves. perhaps the very first words that come to our thoughts should be one of gratitude.  We often spend the rest of our waking day focused on ourselves, our needs, our work, social engagements.

So perhaps the first thing you and I need to pray is “thank you.”  We are alive and safe.  Then we can pray for others.  We might remember that old song…….” Lead me to some soul today and teach me Lord just what to say.” 

The first thing is thankfulness, then pray for others, then for ourselves. 
                                         That’s the first thing!