time

Don’t Just Wait for Time with God, TAKE IT

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It’s both a privilege and a need for vacation downtime. It’s not just a change of scenery that helps, but a change of one’s frame of mind in the same scenery, because a staycation even for one day can be so productive mentally for yourself. I’m planning half-days vacation to finish off the year. I’ll probably start my Christmas cards and various projects and just BE.

I enjoyed Christmas here and time up home too, and enjoyed that which was focused on family (work family too) and merriment – and church family and being in a spirit of giving. (Still giving leftovers too)… With new year upon us, and resolutions, it’s an important time to give up the most convoluted stress we hold: OUR EXPECTATIONS. God does remind us to take and live one day at a time, so expectations are our sinful stealing the future away to our own desires. Let us let the Lord lead and fulfill the time instead. God’s got this.

Nicely Christmas becomes (hopefully) a refocus on time with God, because God took the time to be with us, coming to earth. God didn’t just wait for the fulfilment of time to be with us, He made it, meaning He fulfilled it.

So let us take time with God, don’t just wait for it, but make it. Make time you take to be His. 

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near.

Clearly God-dedication times are more mentally productive than anything else. Moments or months are best made by consulting the Lord. 

When I take morning time to read and infuse scripture pertaining to my life and/or expounding upon how it pertains to all of us, or a few, it’s a mission of the moment. And absorbing scripture is a personal journey because in sticky situations, when prayed about, one will often be given direction by the scriptures.

God can move mountains, yet it doesn’t mean the instant resolution of problems. So often, like the serenity prayer, one will TRY to discern the things that you can change and those you can’t and the wisdom to know the difference. Best of course to PUT IT ALL in God’s Hands and see what He Hands back and what He doesn’t. We can’t do anything without God. REMEMBER, HE WORKS IN A WAY WELL ABOVE OUR WAYS.

So, in moments before this year’s closes, do not fret over the lost time or over-engineer the future, just BE. Just be in His Time for you. He MADE time and set aside time, we can too.

Walk with the Lord, decompress and all the rest. The Lord always has TIME for us. 

Amen 

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Isaiah 55:8-12

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.”

It’s All a Blur

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I wanted a photo of a sign that said “No horses on bridge”, but I moved my arm and it’s all a blur photo-wise. Trust me LIFE is all a BLUR too. 

I would know, being old enough and yet young enough that there’s many things that have changed in my mere few decades. To me, my young age sounds like a lot, but it doesn’t feel like a lot. You too? So I say it’s like a blur, but with crisp moments that seem like yesterday and wish would return like tomorrow. (Then again glad others are gone, water under the bridge.)

The bridge. Can you imagine a time someone would have walked a team of horses across this rennovated but once 1800’s metropolitan country-ish bridge, between cities now, or be tempted to cross even with car traffic because this bridge was then and now convenient? Can you imagine a time someone would have owned horses for transportation and work let alone pleasure, or would have even had a place to go on a horse, would have even had enough time to ride a horse???… I can imagine that for THEN but not for now. Time is a blur.

Look, I didn’t even have time for a proper photo as traffic stopped and then decided to go. Another time I had plenty of time stuck in the middle of the bridge for a day photo of the awesome trusses. Every rush hour this FREE (once toll) bridge is packed. Trust me the horses would have had a faster crossing on foot on the sidewalk! No, no one walks across on the sidewalk anymore either! And I’m old enough and young enough to say “Remember when people walked to work, school, groceries?”… yeah life’s a blur. 

Bumpy rides seem smoother in hindsight.

I crossed the bridge driving my daughter to and from her internship. I loved the time chatting in the car, backed up traffic or not. I appreciated the time making the most out of Christmas, open and closed in a short month,  I’m holding onto it longer, to appreciate one day at a time because that’s all I could handle and because we ALL don’t know about tomorrow let alone next year. Lord willing yes or no, just go with the flow. 

So, also this week I was picking up my outside knocked-over neon nativity decorations after a windy wet storm. There was a ten dollar bill blown up the hill, sitting in front of a king! Wow, a king that delivers! And I thought what would Jesus’s family have used those gifts for, of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh? Were they symbolic gifts? Practical gifts? Both? And what should I spend this 10 dollars on?! It’s cool, but 10 dollar 50 years ago would have bought a lot more! What would it be in Jesus’s time? Things change. Jesus doesn’t, but times do. I will think about this ten dollars – perhaps it like taxes and toll bridges are needed to be paid and the Lord provides that too (just ask Peter and that fish). Isn’t it good that Jesus paid the price for our toll toiling life bridge to Heaven too?

What doesn’t change? That time moves fast. What shouldn’t change? Our opportunities to say thank You Lord, whether in pain or in peace, it’s JOY in the Journey which fills our praise. 

If we take it one day at a time, we can lock in and focus on the One True Sure LIGHT that is Jesus! We won’t have a blur but will see Him clearly, leading us!

Keep Shining Lord.

Be unblurred.

Amen 

The Lasting Word

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It’s not unusual to give books away, or find writing in used ones, but when one buys a used copy, like I did last month, it WAS unusual for a greeting card and paper insert to come with it. This is a Jesus Calling devotional book gift re-gifted back to a thrift store which made its way into my hands thru used book selling on ebay, and along with it this card and paper insert, which has God’s Word re-stated for a new audience, me and you. God’s Word is a LASTING WORD. 

The first scripture on the paper is Psalm 24:5 “they will receive a blessing from the Lord. “ ….  YEAH! On the card, it says on the front cover: “In life we may not know which battles we have to fight.” And inside a reminder that God goes with us. (Fitting for this card went to a couple whose husband was recovering from a bad fall) And inside: the scripture is Deuteronomy 3:22 “The Lord God himself will fight for you“… YES! The paper insert is a set of devotions from Guideposts shared at a Sunday school class, especially fitting about a missed Thanksgiving dinner from illness which yielded unexpected blessings the following year that came about BECAUSE of the missed event and the backup plans that got good things going in motion. God works in mysterious ways, YES!!!

So I don’t know why I was the recipient of this card stuck inside the book, that made it all the way to me, but surely someone needs to hear the message, so I will repeat the scripture sentiment: God has this. God has you!!! God has a plan and God will make His Plan – in His Time.

If we cannot see a blessing, it doesn’t mean God can’t make something beautiful, even out of a tragedy. God can and God does… in His Time…

I will count on God – and His Lasting Word.

Amen

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Psalm 5:1-3 Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation. Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.