Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Every Day is a "Birthday"

🎉🎁💞
I was planning on posting yesterday,  ON my birthday, but it was so full of blessings I ran out of time!
I got so many birthday wishes; friends, family, friends of friends and friends of my kids!  The blessing of a growing circle!
Other than that, was it different than any other day? 
A bit....I got some gifts....but honestly,  I felt like I had gotten gifts recently,  Family was here, but I have enjoyed family all around recently.  
It made me think...not because my birthday wasn't a special day (it WAS thank you ALL!!)...but that MOST of my days are filled with blessings and are special! The people around me make me feel special on a regular basis!.
And even if we are going through "stuff".  Some of it is how it is now, a new normal so to speak, some of it new challenges and hurdles to get over. 
But over all of it God’s plan is still in place, He still has work for me to do, He still loves me and there are blessings everywhere I look! 

📖 Blessed are the poor in spirit, 
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
 Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5:3-12

📖 “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
    whose confidence is in him. Jeremiah 17:7

The song that keeps going through my head...makes me smile every time! The video is fun but the words ring true!

🎵 I'm So Blessed Cain


To God I am special...every day! And that makes every day a special day just like a birthday!

🙏🏼My Great God, remind me that I'm so blessed, I've got this heartbeat in my chest, I am a child of God and no matter what is going on I AM BLESSED! Thank you for every moment, every blessing ♥️

“‘“The Lord bless you
    and keep you;
25 the Lord make his face shine on you
    and be gracious to you;
26 the Lord turn his face toward you
    and give you peace.”’ Numbers 6:24-26

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Moment by Moment

I was thinking about my grandkids (which happens frequently) and how fast time moves. It doesn't seem that long ago my three were that age. 
I thought of the "wisdom" I could impart; "enjoy what you have now", "Don't miss now." "Don't miss what you won't get back", etcetera. I sound like I am old! Which to my grands, I suppose I am! 

These years are so busy, and so much happening, so many goals to be attained, just trying to get from stage to stage with everyone intact. 

But isn't that all of us...we work through today or this week because we have this or that next week or month, or even next year. 
We are so busy getting our lists done, working toward that next stage.
📖  Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”  James 4:13-15
But we are in this moment for a purpose....even if it is a difficult or trying moment. 
 📖 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 13:33
God has stuff for us to do, if we take the time to look at what we are in the middle of...not at our agenda, but His. 
📖  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:8-10

The difficult and even traumatic moments can have lessons for us. Even if just to draw closer to God and rely on Him.
📖 Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6
We, of course, do what we do each day because of our belief we will be here tomorrow and next week and have things that have to be done. But we are not guaranteed tomorrow. 
📖  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. James 4:14

I am not saying do not work towards goals and plan. But we must try to notice today, this moment in front of us. 
Recognize that God has allowed us to be in this moment for a reason.
📖 Many are the plans in a person’s heart,
    but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. Proverbs 19:21

A way to do that is to be grateful and thank God for even the little things in the day, in the moment.
Waking up in a warm home (yes warm, spring seems to have delayed here!) 
Waking up!  Amen!?  That means God has a purpose for you today!
For what is around you. I know for me God has blessed me with a wonderful home, full of wonderful stuff. 
Instead of seeing the work that needs doing (cleaning, laundry, cleaning, projects, cleaning, etc) all things that need to be done, but if I just focus on that I can get overwhelmed and then miss the moment. 
📖 This is the day the Lord has made;
We will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24

We have been so blessed with everything around us....I don't want to miss that. 
Also, how can we use all that God has blessed us with.

I have a mess in my playroom...but I have an abundance of toys and have been blessed with many children in my home over the years to play with them. And now grand children.  
IF God shows you a way to use what you have to bless others that is wonderful.
But I don't think we can see or hear what God wants us to do with the blessings we have in this stage if we are focused on the next stage. 
📖 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,  since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Colossians 3:23-24

We move through our moments knowing, trusting, that God has our future moments.
📖 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34

 We can focus on what is in front of us, leaving the rest to Him. 

📖 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

🙏🏼Lord, help me to see the moments in front of me right now, leave my concerns for future moments to You. As I do the tasks ahead of me today, open my eyes to the teachable moments and the blessings that I can pass on to others. Help me to live each moment for Your glory.  Amen♥️

While working on this, there was a song that kept coming to mind.

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

A Fish Tale

As I was cleaning my livingroom and dusting the "stuff"...the memories, I thought about how a person lives on when we talk about them, share stories, even have reminders. My living room has many things that belonged to my grandparents. Fishing poles and reels.

 A great old fishing creel that is hanging, still stuffed with all my grandmother's fishing parifinalia. There is a writing I did in a frame that is about one of our fishing excursions; "A Grand Memory". 


 I thought about how my children and now grandchildren, know who we are talking about when they hear the stories. It is important to tell them. If we don't talk and reminisce about those who have passed...they fade from existance, maybe just to names in a registry or on a memorial. 
The more we talk about them and share their stories the more they are a part of us and our lives. 

And then I thought, it is the same with the most important relationship in our lives. If we have accepted Christ we are a part of His family. 
📖  Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God John 1:12

📖 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, Ephesians 2:19

But if we don't talk about Him, share stories of what He has done for us, talk about our Heavenly Father’s extravagant love for us, How will people know?
If we don't share about what He does for us every single day...we don't talk about His goodness and grace...He begins to fade...from our life. 
Let me clarify
HE DOES NOT CHANGE!
But our thoughts about His importance in our lives fade....as well as the influence we are allowing weakens.
📖  Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth. Dueteronomy 11:18-21
Hopefully, I am telling as many stories about my childhood fishing adventures with my grandparents as I am about my amazing journey with the Fisher of Men.

📖 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,  keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. 1 Peter 3:15-16

📖 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?  And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" Roman's 10:14-15

🙏🏼 Oh Lord, how grateful I am for all You have done for me. Please, keep me bold enough to tell Your stories, to tell the world of the wonderful things You have done for me!♥️

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Stiff Neck

 The Scripture that keeps going through my mind today...
📖 You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Acts 7:51

I am literally stiff necked today...following a surgery on my c-spine yesterday.




But it got me thinking. With a stiff neck you literally lose range of motion to the sides...up and down. I will heal and my range of motion will be better than ever.
But what about our spiritual stiff necks; they cause us to stop looking to the right or left. We don't look up or down. We are inflexible in our opinions or thought processes. We dont see the people in our peripheral who are in need or hurting. We don't look up for wisdom and guidance. We don't look down in humility.   
We don't listen to God, choose not to follow His direction or listen to those whom God sends...
📖 But they did not listen to me or pay attention. They were stiff-necked and did more evil than their ancestors.’ “When you tell them all this, they will not listen to you; when you call to them, they will not answer. Jeremiah 7:26-27

I think it is important we do a self examination and see if we are indeed becoming stiff-necked and are in need of "surgical intervention"

📖 Necks get even stiffer. And eventually it lead to total destruction. Whoever remains stiff necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy. Proverbs 29:1
 Without intervention we will be destroyed!   What can we do?
First: Can we hang our head down in sorrow for our sins against God, knowing our own lack of goodness. In humility.
Next: Can we look up toward the heavens and cry out to our God for His forgiveness and mercy.
Third: Can we turn to the left and see the poor and hungry. 
Forth: Can we turn to the right and see the lost and broken. 
And if we can, we must love them in Jesus name. We must DO as Jesus instructed us to do. 
📖 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.  My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. John 15:10-15
If you can't seem to move in any or all of those directions, then you must remove whatever is causing the impingement.  Pride, selfishness, anger, bitterness, apathy...
📖  “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. John 15:1-2
📖 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:30-32
Your stiff neck can heal and you can be better than before!  The key is to keep it limber and listen to the Lord and what He has for you.
🙏🏼Lord, help us keep us from becoming stiff necked. Help us to constantly keep moving in ways that serve You and Glorify You.♥️




Monday, March 3, 2025

Upping the Game

Matthew Chapter 5 was used this past Sunday for the message and as I was looking at the chapter I noticed some things.
The version I happened to be looking at was CSB, the Christian Standard Bible. 

My first thought; Jesus came to "step up the game"
to raise the status quo. 
He said that the law was important but that what was in people hearts, what drives them, is more important 
📖 17 “Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all things are accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.

The next thing I noticed was the headings;

Murder Begins in the Heart

Verses 21-26

Adultery Begins in the Heart

Verses 27-30

Go the Second Mile

Verses 38-42

Love Your Enemies

Verses 43-48

In each section Jesus begins by saying "You have heard..." , in other words "what you have been taught concerning the law in regards to..."

He follows with "But I tell you..."
He did not contradict the law, He pushed it to a new level, one that would make many uncomfortable.  
As He stated;
📖  46 For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same? 
He expected followers to do better, to do more, than everyone else. He expected all things be done in love and some people could not get past differences in class, heritage, or position. 

He expected/expects for us to...
📖 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

He said as our "Father is"...not "as I am"..because everything He did pointed to His Father, represented the Father. He modeled His father and we are to do the same.

🙏🏼Lord, we thank you for Your Word, that we have a model to follow. I pray You give us Your insight, Your grace and mercy as we represent our Father in all we do. I pray You challenge us to "up our game" as we serve You and love in Your name!♥️

Wednesday, February 26, 2025

No Pit So Deep

 "No pit is so deep that His love is not deeper still"
🎬


Pits, literal and figurative, are not pleasant places to find ourselves in. Whether we dig our own or someone throws us in to one; they are dark, dreary, scary, uncomfortable, hurtful, harmful, cold, lonely.  
They are referenced in scripture literally; as in the pit that Joseph's brothers threw him in.
📖  And Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit which is in the wilderness, and do not lay a hand on him”—that he might deliver him out of their hands, and bring him back to his father. Genesis 37:22

Or pits dug for battle (used to kill or capture the enemy)
📖 They spread a net for my feet—
    I was bowed down in distress.
They dug a pit in my path—
    but they have fallen into it themselves. Psalm 57:6

Or figuratively as places that separate us from the Lord and swallow us up, 
📖 You have put me in the lowest pit,
    in the darkest depths. Psalm 88:6

Or to represent Hell.
📖 You, Lord, brought me up from the realm of the dead;
    you spared me from going down to the pit. Psalm 30:3
📖 But you will be brought down to Sheol
into the deepest regions of the Pit. Isaiah 14:15






 
In some Scripture, the term pit is also used when showing there is hope in the Lord.
📖 God has delivered me from going down to the pit, and I shall live to enjoy the light of life.’ Job 33:28

📖 I waited patiently for the Lordhe turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock 
and gave me a firm place to stand. Psalm 40:1-2

📖 I went down to the moorings of the mountains;
The earth with its bars closed behind me forever;
Yet You have brought up my life from the pit,
Lord, my God. Jonah 2:6 (NKJV)


📖 Praise the Lord, my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins
    and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
    and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
    so that your youth is renewed like  psalm 103:2-5

I am not sure how, other than God's amazing grace and mercy, did Corrie, Betsy and others retain a thread of hope while enduring the work camps and concentration camps of WWII. There are many other stories of hope in the darkest of pits.

I have written of Joseph of Gensis (Can We See Beyond the Pit message April 2020) and how he kept his faith and served in every pit, literal and figurative he was thrown into.
The answer... GOD! Maintaining a relationship with God. Reading or quoting Scripture, talking to God even if only silently, finding a way to live and serve others in His name. 
And knowing that no matter how your time in the Pit ends....God has got it. Corrie Ten Boom received freedom from the Ravensbruck "pit" and continued to be a witness of God's love and forgiveness....but Besty also became free...when she died in that camp, free from the "pit" and the pain and is sitting with Christ Jesus. 
📖 My eager expectation and hope is that I will not be ashamed about anything, but that now as always, with all courage, Christ will be highly honored in my body, whether by life or by death.  For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.  Philippians 1:20-21


I couldn't pray words any better than those found in Lamentations!

🙏🏼
📖 Those who were my enemies without cause hunted me like a bird. They tried to end my life in a pit and threw stones at me; the waters closed over my head, and I thought I was about to perish. I called on your name, Lordfrom the depths of the pit.  You heard my plea: “Do not close your ears to my cry for relief.” You came near when I called you, and you said, “Do not fear.”  You, Lord, took up my case; you redeemed my lifeLord, you have seen the wrong done to me. Uphold my cause!
 Lamentations 3:52-59
♥️AMEN!