These are some more thoughts on the last post of Contentment.
I cannot claim them as my own, they are from the mouth of my Sunday School teacher. :) They are just a few things that he said that really stood out to me, and caught my attention.
"Discontentment comes from the unwillingness to be still and know that He is God." - Ouch!
"We are always subject to God and His glory, not the other way around."
"The hand that afflicts is good." - that's a hard one.
"Trouble is as much a part of Christianity as salvation, because it's used to transform us to His image."
Don't ya just love him! Now you know why my teeth stay grit through out the whole lesson. :) Praise the Lord He continues the work in me, and will carry His work in me to completion. That is such a relief. Even though things may be hard, I know He is still working.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The RARE Jewel of Contentment
So I am in a Sunday School class entitled Contentment. What was I thinking joining this one?! Ha! It has been just what I need for now, even though I sit through most of it with my teeth grit and questions oozing out of my ears. The one statement that carries through each lesson is the definition of contentment by...oh I forgot his name, but I have the definition. :)
"Christian contentment is that sweet, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's, wise and fatherly disposal in every condition."
There are several parts of that definition that just perplex me to no end....
- sweet, quiet, gracious frame of spirit... Lord are you sure you gave me one of those? Did you leave that part out when you made me?
-freely submits... Oh Lord, now this one we both know you have to wring out of me. Please bring me to a day when I will freely submit, and quickly at that.
-delights in... now we're getting tough. Lord it's so hard to delight in something that looks so awful. Help me to wrap my mind around You and Your goodness. It's hard to delight in these hard things. Please give me a Spirit that delights in Your will.
-wise and fatherly... Lord?! Help!!!!!! I can't see it, and don't know how to find this... show me this side of your character.
-disposal... you've got to be kidding me?! This sounds like You are putting me through a garbage disposal, and honestly, it feels like it sometimes too. Help me to know Your disposal is good, though painful, it is for your good and your glory alone.
-every condition... ugh! It just gets harder and harder. That means no matter what... LORD, I'm here again! Please ungrit my teeth and make me content! Eh, that's a scary prayer!
My only prayer right now is that the LORD will be patient with me as He works in me this Christian contentment, and gives me a clearer, truer view of who He is in my life.
LORD Jesus Christ, have mercy on my soul, the most discontented of sinners!
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
I Will Always Be True
I will always be true.
No, I'll never believe it.
I will be here with you,
through the storms and the seasons.
Through the sun and the rain,
through the joy and the pain,
I will know what to do,
I will always be true.
I will always be true.
No, you never should doubt it.
Once again I will prove,
there is no way around it.
Through the questions and tears,
every day of the year,
I will know what to do,
I will always be true.
If you need a shoulder to cry on,
I'm here every time.
And when you need a hand to hold,
I'll give you mine.
I will always be true.
You can always believe it.
And when My life is through,
well I hope you will see that,
every day that I lived,
every breath that I breathed,
yes, it all was for you.
I will always be true.
And if you need a shoulder to cry on,
I'm here every time.
And when you need a hand to hold,
I'll give you mine.
And when you need a shoulder to cry on,
I'm here every time.
And when you need a hand to hold,
I'll give you mine.
I will always be true
All for you.
-Third Day
Oh God, give me the faith of a mustard seed. I want to believe, help my unbelief!!!
Call My Name
Sometimes songs can speak the heart better:
So what went wrong?
But do you know there's a place where you belong,
here in My arms.
When you feel like you're alone in your sadness,
and it seems like no one in this whole earth cares.
And ya wanna get away from the madness.
You just call My Name and I'll be there,
You just call My Name and I'll be there.
The pain inside has erased your hope for love
but soon you will find, that I'll give you all
that your heart could ever want and so much more.
When you feel like you're alone in your sadness,
and it seems like no one in this whole earth cares.
And ya wanna get away from the madness.
You just call My Name and I'll be there,
You just call My Name and I'll be there.
Oh, you just call My Name.
You just call My Name.
Call My Name, say it loud, I want you to never doubt,
The love I have for you is so alive.
Call My Name, say it loud, I want you to never doubt,
the love I have for you is so alive.
You just call My Name.
You just call My Name.
You just call My Name.
The Love I have for you is so alive,
the love I have for you is so alive,
You just call My Name.
-Third Day
O, God be patient with me and give me the grace and the strength to call on Your Name.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Answer to Prayer
Lately over the past several weeks, the LORD and I have been wrestling, well ok really just me. Not something that I can say I am proud of, but sometimes even the best of sinners go through these times, one of which I am not (the best of sinners that is - well it all depends on which way you look at it, cause really I would consider my wicked heart best at sinning sometimes!) Anyways, nevermind. I was reading in Genesis this week and was reminded once again that even Jacob, one of our great forefathers wrestled with the LORD. Also there were many others who wrestled with God, although maybe not physically, they had it out with Him in their hearts and souls.
The answer to prayer in all of this crazy wrestling is that the LORD Himself still hears me even when I am wrestling and weak and He gives me what I need. Two weeks ago after yet another sermon that reminded me how important God's Word, His Holy Truth, is I felt very convicted again, that I just haven't read the Bible enough. I haven't treated it as though it is special. I haven't see it as different from any other book. And I certainly have not taken the time to feed on it and hide it in my heart and meditate on it as the very God breathed inspired Word!
So here is how God heard me and answered... One day last week, during the busyness and hustle and bustle, I felt convicted once again by His Spirit that I was not feeding on God's Word. So right then and there I just simply asked the LORD, "God, I can't come up with this on my own, please give me a desire to read your Word! Please give me an unquenchable, insatiable desire for Your Truth!" It wasn't a get down on my knees prayer of humility. It wasn't a beat my breast before the King of Creation. It was a quick prayer from a small conviction, in between songs as I drove down the road to work. This is the amazing part! Are you ready?! God heard me, even in my wrestling, my fear, doubt, and distrust, God heard my prayer!
So this past Sunday I went to night church. Honestly, I wasn't going to go, but I went because I am teaching Pioneer Clubs and the Pastor was going to pray for us before we started. The sermon that night was the LORD speaking to me from my small request. The pastor spoke of God's Word and the importance of reading it, not out of duty, but out of love. He spoke of the ridiculous difference in how we read a love letter vs. the Bible. We read love letters over and over again, through once and then backwards, we read in between the lines, we watch for emphasis in words, we hear tones in punctuation, we look for emotion in the ink on the page... and yet with the Bible, we just skim through it chapter by chapter with no excitement whatsoever. UGH! And the conviction landed on my head!!!! Who told him that I was struggling to even pick up my Bible, my love letter from my Savior? Who told the pastor that it had lost it's luster in my heart? When I got home that night I picked up my 1 year Bible reading plan and started reading the next day. Today I just made it through Genesis... yeh, 4 days ahead of schedule!!! I know!! Isn't that amazing! I just couldn't stop reading earlier!!!
God is so good to give me even the smallest desire to be in His Word. Now for some of you this may sound silly, because you have already mastered the discipline of reading your Bible everday. But for me this is huge! Of course this has been a slow week at work, and so next week might be a little more difficult. But it has just been such a blessing to my heart that God has given me the desire to pick up His Word, and sit and read and study it. This is seriously not something that I would be able to do on my own right now, because I am still wrestling with the LORD. But praise God that He is slow to anger, gracious and abounding in Love.
"a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench..." - Isaiah 42:3
I have been reminding my heart of this by keeping a candle lit at my house because my heart has felt like a faintly burning wick lately. And as I was reading through Genesis this week, I was reminded again that God is a covenant God and has chosen a people to make His Name known to. He is the one the covenant rest on, Praise His Name, Hallelujah! He is the one that will finish in me what He started. I could have no more chosen Him in my sin, and surely could not walk this life that He has called me to if He was not bringing me to completion. Praise the LORD that I am one of His covenant children, and even though I may struggle through the trials and the wrestling, that my faintly burning wick will by His love and grace continue to burn and He will kindle it until the day the LORD returns for me! I have that promise in His Name! Hallelujah for answered prayer!!!
The answer to prayer in all of this crazy wrestling is that the LORD Himself still hears me even when I am wrestling and weak and He gives me what I need. Two weeks ago after yet another sermon that reminded me how important God's Word, His Holy Truth, is I felt very convicted again, that I just haven't read the Bible enough. I haven't treated it as though it is special. I haven't see it as different from any other book. And I certainly have not taken the time to feed on it and hide it in my heart and meditate on it as the very God breathed inspired Word!
So here is how God heard me and answered... One day last week, during the busyness and hustle and bustle, I felt convicted once again by His Spirit that I was not feeding on God's Word. So right then and there I just simply asked the LORD, "God, I can't come up with this on my own, please give me a desire to read your Word! Please give me an unquenchable, insatiable desire for Your Truth!" It wasn't a get down on my knees prayer of humility. It wasn't a beat my breast before the King of Creation. It was a quick prayer from a small conviction, in between songs as I drove down the road to work. This is the amazing part! Are you ready?! God heard me, even in my wrestling, my fear, doubt, and distrust, God heard my prayer!
So this past Sunday I went to night church. Honestly, I wasn't going to go, but I went because I am teaching Pioneer Clubs and the Pastor was going to pray for us before we started. The sermon that night was the LORD speaking to me from my small request. The pastor spoke of God's Word and the importance of reading it, not out of duty, but out of love. He spoke of the ridiculous difference in how we read a love letter vs. the Bible. We read love letters over and over again, through once and then backwards, we read in between the lines, we watch for emphasis in words, we hear tones in punctuation, we look for emotion in the ink on the page... and yet with the Bible, we just skim through it chapter by chapter with no excitement whatsoever. UGH! And the conviction landed on my head!!!! Who told him that I was struggling to even pick up my Bible, my love letter from my Savior? Who told the pastor that it had lost it's luster in my heart? When I got home that night I picked up my 1 year Bible reading plan and started reading the next day. Today I just made it through Genesis... yeh, 4 days ahead of schedule!!! I know!! Isn't that amazing! I just couldn't stop reading earlier!!!
God is so good to give me even the smallest desire to be in His Word. Now for some of you this may sound silly, because you have already mastered the discipline of reading your Bible everday. But for me this is huge! Of course this has been a slow week at work, and so next week might be a little more difficult. But it has just been such a blessing to my heart that God has given me the desire to pick up His Word, and sit and read and study it. This is seriously not something that I would be able to do on my own right now, because I am still wrestling with the LORD. But praise God that He is slow to anger, gracious and abounding in Love.
"a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench..." - Isaiah 42:3
I have been reminding my heart of this by keeping a candle lit at my house because my heart has felt like a faintly burning wick lately. And as I was reading through Genesis this week, I was reminded again that God is a covenant God and has chosen a people to make His Name known to. He is the one the covenant rest on, Praise His Name, Hallelujah! He is the one that will finish in me what He started. I could have no more chosen Him in my sin, and surely could not walk this life that He has called me to if He was not bringing me to completion. Praise the LORD that I am one of His covenant children, and even though I may struggle through the trials and the wrestling, that my faintly burning wick will by His love and grace continue to burn and He will kindle it until the day the LORD returns for me! I have that promise in His Name! Hallelujah for answered prayer!!!
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Treading Water
Ok, this is the last one for today, because I have got to get some work done! :) Lately life has felt lately like I am treading water in a turbulant and restless sea, and just wanted to share my thoughts on this.
Lately I have gotten the picture in my head over and over again that in my life these days I am treading water from day to day. Treading trying to keep my head above the waves, to keep from drowning. I feel like I have been treading for quite some time, and I don't know if I haven't learned the lesson put before me, I don't know if I am just stubborn and don't get it, I don't know if I am just rebellious and therefore have to swim through the same stinkin storm over and over again. But I do know that life right now feels like an angry, turbulant, storm tossed sea. The waves, although spaced apart by maybe a few months in between, have just pummeled me over the last year. And these waves aren't the lil nice ones on the MS Gulf Coast that make a cute lil splursh sound when they break. They are more like the tsunami waves of Thailand that build up momentum from afar and just completely destroy and wreck everything in their paths with force that is unimaginable. Not only are there enormous waves crashing over me, but I also have felt as if I am in a whirlpool sea, or one of those hydraulic spots on the Ocoee River, that sucks you down and threatens not to let you up again. Now I know that I, as a Christian, am not promised ease or comfort in this life. I am promised sanctification and transformation, which is not pretty at times, most times actually, and very wearisome. And lately, my heart has grown weary and I just keeping asking, Lord, seriously, for real, are You kidding me,what, why, how?! A lot of times I feel like I am treading and I get a lil second wind to keep going, a lil hope to keep kicking and swimming, and I look up and there is a life line, a tow rope, dangling just right above my head. I give a powerful kick and right as I reach up to grasp the life line the next wave crashes and pushes me back under the water, and tumbles, twists, and turns me so that I don't know which way is up anymore. It's so frustrating!
Now the part about this sea that confuses me to no end, which I almost hate to write, is that I know the One who controls the sea. I know the God of all gods who is almighty and sovereign over all things, even over this rebellious, stubborn, wearied heart! And so therefore it has always been too easy for me to first look up and say Lord, please, could You please calm the storm for just a few seconds, could You please make the next tsunami wave possibly not be quite so big, could there please be a lil relief in between the waves, can You make a rock appear and make it grow underneath me so I can rest on for a lil while to catch my breath as it lifts me up and out of this water, can You lower the lifeline just an inch closer so I can reach it, or at my worst, Lord, could You please just cease the storm all together.
I find myself in a place that I have been before, but have never been so wearied in, a place where I can't make heads of tails and up from down. Am I to just stop treading and sink? Do I settle for a slippery rock that offers temporary pleasure and relief? Do I just lay back on my back and float and put my happy face on and pretend like the storm does not exist?
This Sunday the Pastor said, that I as a Christian have a future, a promise, a hope, a day when the LORD will come and take me home. That gives me a glimmer of hope that one day the storm will cease and I will be able to walk on the water with the Lord and catch enormous fish with Him. But now, what about now?!
How do I keep going now, today? What keeps me treading, where do I get energy? What? How? When? runs through my head a lot these days. A lot of times I get stuck in a mindset that I am alone, and the only one who is treading in such a massive storm, and it's because of my rebellious stubborn heart. But I know, I just know there are others out there, that just hide it better than I can. Others who have more energy for a happy face, and may be able to float better and hide their storms under a pretty smile. Or as a dear freind told me yesterday, "people buy their Ann Taylor to hide the inside and wear Ann on their faces too!" ugh! Conviction! I am not setting myself up to look glorious for treading, because I am so not! I am sick of it and not only am I sick of it, but I suck at it too!
I know that one day I will look back and like Paul say that these momentary afflictions were only passing and only for a season in the light of eternity! But I guess in the thick of the monsoon/tsunami season it seems like it will never end. I just pray that God will be patient with me and glorify Himself in and through me, even when I don't have it in me to give.
LORD Jesus Christ, have mercy on my soul, the worst of treading sinners!!!!
Lately I have gotten the picture in my head over and over again that in my life these days I am treading water from day to day. Treading trying to keep my head above the waves, to keep from drowning. I feel like I have been treading for quite some time, and I don't know if I haven't learned the lesson put before me, I don't know if I am just stubborn and don't get it, I don't know if I am just rebellious and therefore have to swim through the same stinkin storm over and over again. But I do know that life right now feels like an angry, turbulant, storm tossed sea. The waves, although spaced apart by maybe a few months in between, have just pummeled me over the last year. And these waves aren't the lil nice ones on the MS Gulf Coast that make a cute lil splursh sound when they break. They are more like the tsunami waves of Thailand that build up momentum from afar and just completely destroy and wreck everything in their paths with force that is unimaginable. Not only are there enormous waves crashing over me, but I also have felt as if I am in a whirlpool sea, or one of those hydraulic spots on the Ocoee River, that sucks you down and threatens not to let you up again. Now I know that I, as a Christian, am not promised ease or comfort in this life. I am promised sanctification and transformation, which is not pretty at times, most times actually, and very wearisome. And lately, my heart has grown weary and I just keeping asking, Lord, seriously, for real, are You kidding me,what, why, how?! A lot of times I feel like I am treading and I get a lil second wind to keep going, a lil hope to keep kicking and swimming, and I look up and there is a life line, a tow rope, dangling just right above my head. I give a powerful kick and right as I reach up to grasp the life line the next wave crashes and pushes me back under the water, and tumbles, twists, and turns me so that I don't know which way is up anymore. It's so frustrating!
Now the part about this sea that confuses me to no end, which I almost hate to write, is that I know the One who controls the sea. I know the God of all gods who is almighty and sovereign over all things, even over this rebellious, stubborn, wearied heart! And so therefore it has always been too easy for me to first look up and say Lord, please, could You please calm the storm for just a few seconds, could You please make the next tsunami wave possibly not be quite so big, could there please be a lil relief in between the waves, can You make a rock appear and make it grow underneath me so I can rest on for a lil while to catch my breath as it lifts me up and out of this water, can You lower the lifeline just an inch closer so I can reach it, or at my worst, Lord, could You please just cease the storm all together.
I find myself in a place that I have been before, but have never been so wearied in, a place where I can't make heads of tails and up from down. Am I to just stop treading and sink? Do I settle for a slippery rock that offers temporary pleasure and relief? Do I just lay back on my back and float and put my happy face on and pretend like the storm does not exist?
This Sunday the Pastor said, that I as a Christian have a future, a promise, a hope, a day when the LORD will come and take me home. That gives me a glimmer of hope that one day the storm will cease and I will be able to walk on the water with the Lord and catch enormous fish with Him. But now, what about now?!
How do I keep going now, today? What keeps me treading, where do I get energy? What? How? When? runs through my head a lot these days. A lot of times I get stuck in a mindset that I am alone, and the only one who is treading in such a massive storm, and it's because of my rebellious stubborn heart. But I know, I just know there are others out there, that just hide it better than I can. Others who have more energy for a happy face, and may be able to float better and hide their storms under a pretty smile. Or as a dear freind told me yesterday, "people buy their Ann Taylor to hide the inside and wear Ann on their faces too!" ugh! Conviction! I am not setting myself up to look glorious for treading, because I am so not! I am sick of it and not only am I sick of it, but I suck at it too!
I know that one day I will look back and like Paul say that these momentary afflictions were only passing and only for a season in the light of eternity! But I guess in the thick of the monsoon/tsunami season it seems like it will never end. I just pray that God will be patient with me and glorify Himself in and through me, even when I don't have it in me to give.
LORD Jesus Christ, have mercy on my soul, the worst of treading sinners!!!!
2008 Another Year Flies By
It always, I mean always amazes me at how fast time flies by, there is just not stopping it! It seems like just yesterday I was 11 and we were moving to MS. Or just the other day I was graduating from college, or watching my brother grin from ear to ear as his wife walked down the isle, or held my lil nephew and loved on Raney for the first time, or lived and served in the Philippines...
Where does time go? The more important question I have been thinking and feeling guilty about lately is what am I doing with my time?
As I look at the year that has just passed, I am overwhelmed with how distracted I have been and can be. It doesn't take much to get my mind off focus, and my heart on a completely different track, of "my" path. There are always places to go, things to do, stuff to buy, people to see, ministry to be involved in, love to be given, work to be done, plans to be made, all of which just engulfs huge amounts of time.
And what is the first thing on my schedule that goes out the window when time and busyness invade and take over my days... the LORD and being still before Him.
This past Sunday my pastor, an amazing proclaimer of the Gospel, spoke of how suffocated we are with the things, intentions, purposes, glories, plans, joys, cares, and loves of this world. We are in this world, and the Lord himself asked that we not be taken out of it. He compared our spiritual vitality to our lungs, and daily we breathe in the air/pollution of this world, the sin, rebellion, and just worldliness... and we can't help but breathe it in. There is no escape from it, there is nowhere that we can go to stop breathing in the air of this fallen world. And eventually it has an effect on our lungs. It cripples our lungs, it stunts our growth, and effects our life breath.
The only way to breathe the cleaner air that is from above is to lift my face up, turn my eyes to the things above, and seek His face, breathe in His grace. Oh, if only that were as easy as it sounds. It takes all the energy I have to fight against myself and my will, not even considering the world around me, and time that seems to pass in the blink of an eye. I feel like a fish swimming upstream, fighting against the current. I am different and should look that way. But a lot of times I find myself caught up in the same life, the same time warp, and temporal world that everyone else is caught up in, and I wonder where I went wrong, when did my eyes gaze fall downward, when did the fog set in and I wander off His path.
It's a difficult battle daily to fight against the flow, and to walk the difference of the Gospel. It's a battle that can't be done on my own strength. Yes, the LORD is teaching me this again!! How thick headed can I be?! I often wonder in my mind, when I get to the end of my life, will I look back and be proud of what I have spent my time doing, or will I look back and regret how I wasted my life on pointless worldly things that don't hold an ounce of weight in eternity. At the end of my life will I have exercised and used my spiritual lungs and therefore be prepared to breathe in the holy air of heaven and the presence of the Lord himself; or will my lungs be so crippled and atrophied, from spending all my time breathing the world's pollution, that I can't survive on the pureness of the Lord?
Oh Lord, help me now not to waste my life on pointless time wasting things. Focus my time, eyes, heart and life on You and You alone!!!
Where does time go? The more important question I have been thinking and feeling guilty about lately is what am I doing with my time?
As I look at the year that has just passed, I am overwhelmed with how distracted I have been and can be. It doesn't take much to get my mind off focus, and my heart on a completely different track, of "my" path. There are always places to go, things to do, stuff to buy, people to see, ministry to be involved in, love to be given, work to be done, plans to be made, all of which just engulfs huge amounts of time.
And what is the first thing on my schedule that goes out the window when time and busyness invade and take over my days... the LORD and being still before Him.
This past Sunday my pastor, an amazing proclaimer of the Gospel, spoke of how suffocated we are with the things, intentions, purposes, glories, plans, joys, cares, and loves of this world. We are in this world, and the Lord himself asked that we not be taken out of it. He compared our spiritual vitality to our lungs, and daily we breathe in the air/pollution of this world, the sin, rebellion, and just worldliness... and we can't help but breathe it in. There is no escape from it, there is nowhere that we can go to stop breathing in the air of this fallen world. And eventually it has an effect on our lungs. It cripples our lungs, it stunts our growth, and effects our life breath.
The only way to breathe the cleaner air that is from above is to lift my face up, turn my eyes to the things above, and seek His face, breathe in His grace. Oh, if only that were as easy as it sounds. It takes all the energy I have to fight against myself and my will, not even considering the world around me, and time that seems to pass in the blink of an eye. I feel like a fish swimming upstream, fighting against the current. I am different and should look that way. But a lot of times I find myself caught up in the same life, the same time warp, and temporal world that everyone else is caught up in, and I wonder where I went wrong, when did my eyes gaze fall downward, when did the fog set in and I wander off His path.
It's a difficult battle daily to fight against the flow, and to walk the difference of the Gospel. It's a battle that can't be done on my own strength. Yes, the LORD is teaching me this again!! How thick headed can I be?! I often wonder in my mind, when I get to the end of my life, will I look back and be proud of what I have spent my time doing, or will I look back and regret how I wasted my life on pointless worldly things that don't hold an ounce of weight in eternity. At the end of my life will I have exercised and used my spiritual lungs and therefore be prepared to breathe in the holy air of heaven and the presence of the Lord himself; or will my lungs be so crippled and atrophied, from spending all my time breathing the world's pollution, that I can't survive on the pureness of the Lord?
Oh Lord, help me now not to waste my life on pointless time wasting things. Focus my time, eyes, heart and life on You and You alone!!!
Sun Soaking
Hey, so I've been gone for a while, busy with Holiday hurriedness, getting the parents off to the Philippines, and now coming back down to day to day routine.
So as I get back into the routine of things, and I begin to drive back to work every day I keep seeing the same picture over and over again, and today it looked a lil different. I thought I would share.
As it is winter right now, and so stinking cold!, when I leave for work in the am the ground is frosty and the sun is just barely starting to peak over the tree tops on my right side as I drive up 25 toward Carthage. It feels like it slowly is warming up as the sun tops the trees and shines in my car. There are two big pastures that I pass every morning, and in one is a white horse and the other has tons of cows. Every morning as I pass them I feel so sorry for them, because it really is cold out there, of course it's colder in other places, but it's cold enough for me here!
The white horse always seems to have made his way over to the exact spot in the pasture where the sun hits first. He stands there, not eating, not grazing, not swishing his tail (it's too cold for flies, ah!), he just stands broadside in the sunshine, soaking it in. Don't you know how good it feels to feel the warmth of the sun after being outside in the pasture and the frost and the cold night temperatures all night?!
Then as I come closer to Carthage, the sun is good and up, as I pass the pasture full of cows, and they are doing the same thing, just standing, basting, basking, and soaking up the sunshine, getting warm. I always grin as I see the cows because they look like they are vaporizing. There are always smoke puffs of steam coming off of them, I guess as the sun vaporizes the wet frost on them.
Today as I saw them, I envied their simpleness. How amazing would it be... no, no, no!!! Not to stay in a pasture over night outside in the cold, ugh! NO! How amazing would it be to have nothing else to do but to stand and soak up the Son and eat grass. ha! I know I know it's a crazy thought. But isn't that really what I am to do from day to day. But lately I have been so frustrated with how I get in the way, and I how mess things up, and how I am the one that complicates life. It's my busy schedule, my idolatry, my sins, my selfishness, "my" life and plans, my rebellious will that all gets in the way of what I am here on this earth to do. And of course the world doesn't help any... it's always there to lend a quick hand to get me distracted from my true purpose and the true reality of glorifying God.
What the Lord wants from me and what He offers me really does seem so simple at times... just as simple as standing, being still, soaking in the Son, and letting His grace, warmth, love and light vaporize all my fears, worries, the cares of the world, all my, my, mine, me, mines, ugh! I seem to make things so difficult, and yet His creation, the cows and the horse, seem to be setting me a pretty good example! ha! Oh if I would only "Kiss", and keep it simple stupid!
Just thought I'd share my funny, but oh so true thoughts.
I'm back! :)
So as I get back into the routine of things, and I begin to drive back to work every day I keep seeing the same picture over and over again, and today it looked a lil different. I thought I would share.
As it is winter right now, and so stinking cold!, when I leave for work in the am the ground is frosty and the sun is just barely starting to peak over the tree tops on my right side as I drive up 25 toward Carthage. It feels like it slowly is warming up as the sun tops the trees and shines in my car. There are two big pastures that I pass every morning, and in one is a white horse and the other has tons of cows. Every morning as I pass them I feel so sorry for them, because it really is cold out there, of course it's colder in other places, but it's cold enough for me here!
The white horse always seems to have made his way over to the exact spot in the pasture where the sun hits first. He stands there, not eating, not grazing, not swishing his tail (it's too cold for flies, ah!), he just stands broadside in the sunshine, soaking it in. Don't you know how good it feels to feel the warmth of the sun after being outside in the pasture and the frost and the cold night temperatures all night?!
Then as I come closer to Carthage, the sun is good and up, as I pass the pasture full of cows, and they are doing the same thing, just standing, basting, basking, and soaking up the sunshine, getting warm. I always grin as I see the cows because they look like they are vaporizing. There are always smoke puffs of steam coming off of them, I guess as the sun vaporizes the wet frost on them.
Today as I saw them, I envied their simpleness. How amazing would it be... no, no, no!!! Not to stay in a pasture over night outside in the cold, ugh! NO! How amazing would it be to have nothing else to do but to stand and soak up the Son and eat grass. ha! I know I know it's a crazy thought. But isn't that really what I am to do from day to day. But lately I have been so frustrated with how I get in the way, and I how mess things up, and how I am the one that complicates life. It's my busy schedule, my idolatry, my sins, my selfishness, "my" life and plans, my rebellious will that all gets in the way of what I am here on this earth to do. And of course the world doesn't help any... it's always there to lend a quick hand to get me distracted from my true purpose and the true reality of glorifying God.
What the Lord wants from me and what He offers me really does seem so simple at times... just as simple as standing, being still, soaking in the Son, and letting His grace, warmth, love and light vaporize all my fears, worries, the cares of the world, all my, my, mine, me, mines, ugh! I seem to make things so difficult, and yet His creation, the cows and the horse, seem to be setting me a pretty good example! ha! Oh if I would only "Kiss", and keep it simple stupid!
Just thought I'd share my funny, but oh so true thoughts.
I'm back! :)
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