Spring’s abloom with flowers of faith!!
On this 1st day of May, remember that for a seed to sprout & bloom, it must first be planted. So this month, try planting seeds of love & kindness. You’ll be amazed at the beauty that God created through you.
I have spent most of the day working outside in my yard and garden.
Some of the plants I had purchased but some were simply bulbs that had multiplied and were “free” so I was transplanting them.
I took a lot of care planting the plants that cost because somehow in my mind I considered them more valuable. The bulbs pretty much just got shoved into a hole and covered up. But of course…they were less valuable.
As I was working I was thinking about a conversation I had with someone about going to church. Now first let me say that I don’t believe you HAVE to go to church to have a right relationship with God. But my question is, “How much value do you give yourself?”
You are planting yourself in different types of soil all the time. Work, home, sports, friends, relationships….the list is endless. Now…if I take the time to weed, enrich soul, carefully plant, and fertilize the plants that I consider valuable….wouldn’t you think I would do that for myself and my children?
Wouldn’t I want to plant my family in a good, fertile, soil of a church family….in a place that teaches biblical principles and holds me accountable for all other conditions that I may find myself planted in at other times?
Wouldn’t I want to plant myself and my family in soil that I know I will absorb nutrients and fuel that will help sustain me and guide me in choosing the right soil in a world that is so willing to allow us to wither and die because they don’t see our value?
God values me.
Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies.
Proverbs 31:10 NKJV
So shouldn’t I value myself? Shouldn’t you?
Heavenly Father, I come to You thankful for this glorious nation that You have allowed me to grow up in. But I also come to You ashamed at how we as a nation have failed You. We have allowed laws and personal desires to override Your Holy Word. We have allowed greed and dishonesty to run rampant. We teach our children to do their best in school, in sports, in activities…but we fail to teach them about You. We do whatever it takes to get ahead instead of doing what’s right and relying on You to fill our needs. We look to preachers who preach happy, feel-good messages, and wait to see what YOU are going to do for US instead of asking what WE can do for YOU. We may occasionally occupy a pew in Your house on Sunday but then we’re back to cussing and gossiping on Monday. We elect officials based on how we will benefit from their election instead of electing someone who will rely on You for guidance. We take a bad situation and make it worse by rioting, looting, and injuring others. We help ourselves every chance we get but how often to we help others? We condemn others for their sins but don’t see our own. We busy ourselves with our spouse, our kids, our home, with every activity that we can possibly sign up for…we’re always telling everyone that will listen about how busy we are…we are so busy that usually the first thing that we cut out of our schedule is You. We are prideful and we are boastful to the point that we allow it to separate us from loved ones. We harbor anger and un-forgiveness and hope that karma will catch up with our enemies…and sometimes even friends…instead of asking You to help them and us by changing our hearts. We are an ungodly, sinful, people. And despite all of our failures, and all our our despicable behavior, You still love us. You are still waiting for us to turn back to You. You haven’t taken down Your hedge of protection. We have walked away from it. You haven’t left us. We have left You. So I pray today that this amazing nation that You created, will find its way back to You. Because if we aren’t serving You, we are serving Satan. And I pray that everyone who reads this will choose You. All glory be to God! Amen.
**Please share if you agree. There is power in prayer!!
Have you ever noticed how a drop of water can hang suspended for what seems like forever until another drop joins it and gives it enough motivation to move? Or how you can be holding it together at a very emotional time but all it takes is seeing one tear from another person and you fall completely apart? I remember I was like that when I began to moving toward God. I wanted to, but just didn’t have the motivation. If I hadn’t been motivated by another, I may have never started moving toward God. God wants us to be that rain drop for others. He wants us to connect with all the drops that we come across in life so that we can all join together and flow toward Him in the river of righteousness.
I was reading a story the other day about a flight attendant that was supposed to be on a flight that crashed. He and a coworker had traded shifts. He was riddled with guilt because his coworker had perished in his place. It made me think about how horrible I would feel if I asked someone to take my place, and in doing so, lost their life. It’s something that I don’t think anyone would ever ‘get over’.
Or would we?
That very thing has happened to all of us.
Over 2000 years ago, Jesus took our place. And unlike the flight attendant who had no idea what his fate would be, Jesus knew exactly what His future held. He knew He would be beaten, stripped, a crown of thrones, not placed, but viciously crammed onto His head, and His already bloody body, nailed to a cross where He was left to painfully bleed to death. He knew all of this. And yet He still volunteered to take our place.
My prayer for you this Easter Sunday, is that you never ‘get over’ the punishment that Jesus took in our place. Our sins put Him on the cross…but love kept Him there.
I have really been struggling with compassion and works lately. Compassion is something we all deal with at some point but I believe that God expects His children to be compassionate towards one another. I don’t believe that it means that you condone sin or allow people to walk all over you, but I believe that God wants us to have a compassionate heart. You see…you can unintentionally hurt or wrong someone, but if you feel no compassion for what you’ve done, then you have not only hurt them, but you have also tarnished your testimony even if it was unintended. I once thought that one of my “works” for God was trying to get people to come to church with me. I have since realized that although I believe attending church is important for many reasons including that it is God’s desire for us to do so, it’s much more important to get people to God and then hopefully God will lead them to the church He wants them to attend. And if it isn’t the church I go to, that’s ok as long as they are worshipping God and His Word. I believe that denominations are helpful in finding the type of worship that you are drawn to, however, I also believe that denominations are a division in beliefs and can cause a sort of competition between churches. And if the competition to fill seats becomes greater than the desire to fill hearts with the Holy Spirit, then works are dead and compassion is lost.
One of the hardest prayers I’ve ever prayed is also one of the prayers that everyone needs to pray most often. I prayed it after reading Psalm 139:23-24
Search me, God, and know my heart;test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me,and lead me in the way everlasting.
It’s a very humbling experience & all I can say is, “be careful what you pray for!” If you want God to search you He will. And what I found was A LOT that I needed to work on. But thankfully, God doesn’t stop at showing you what’s wrong. He will also show you how to fix it. There may be no end to my to-do list but with God’s mercy and grace, every once in awhile I get to check something off. And when I run out of time, thanks to the cleansing blood of Jesus, whatever is left on my list will taken care if too.
I went outside between rain showers yesterday morning & I think my plants were doing a happy dance! I have been watering them every day since I planted them but one little rain shower & they are noticeably perkier. We can go through this world enjoying all it has to offer, but it’s not until we have tasted the living water of God that we truly live. Life can hand us so many things that we think are sustaining us but they are only temporary. Until we drink the living water, we aren’t really living. And not only is it free….it’s also from a Well that never runs dry.
I’m 5’3″ tall so I’ve gotten pretty accustomed to reaching for things. How far I reach depends on how bad I want what I’m reaching for. What I’ve discovered is that if I want something bad enough, I will find a way to reach it even if I have to climb to do it. If it’s not that important to me then it is going to have to be extremely easy for me to get with minimal effort. God is ALWAYS within our reach. Yet we seem to put more effort into reaching around Him to grab ahold of the world. God will never be out of our reach. We don’t have to climb. We don’t have to jump. And we never have to step on others to get to Him. In fact, He is so close that we only need to pray to reach Him.
On this 3rd day, I feel so blessed to live in a place where it is not forbidden to openly worship God and to be able to teach my girls about Him. It saddens me that there are so many that take that for granted. If our children are the most important things in our lives, then shouldn’t it be more important to teach them about God than it is to teach them about sports, fashion, popularity, and money? Why do we invest so much time on things that only matter temporarily on this earth when we should be investing in their spiritual eternity? In the end…what is more important?
It’s not about the boat…
~ Thought for the Day ~
A few years ago, my husband was explaining to me how he is an emotional canoe. In other words, the least little thing goes wrong, and he flips his canoe. After thinking about it, I decided that he is actually an emotional kayak because although he might flip easily, he also rights himself fairly quickly. Whereas I am actually more like a canoe. I may not flip as easily as a kayak, but once I do, I’ve got to get everything that dumped out gathered up, dried off, reloaded, and then rest a little before I’m ready to get back in the current. And while we are both attempting to stay afloat and upright without flipping so easily, the main thing is to know that there are always going to be swift rapids in our path and we’re gonna get wet. But if we allow God to be our captain, we will remain upright and we will never sink.
19 So, then, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man doesn’t produce the righteousness of God.
James 1:19-20 World English Bible (WEB)
~ Thought for the Day ~
I don’t sunburn easily. So when we’re at the beach…which isn’t as often as I’d like… I put off applying sunscreen…even though I know that I should put it on right away. Maybe I’ll put it on after I’ve swam or looked for seashells a little while. But then I have to wait until after I dry off. And of course I don’t want to put it on until after I help the girls build sandcastles because that will just make the sand stick even more. And besides…I’ve been out here all day and I’m not even red yet. It’s not until it’s too late that I realize that I burned. It’s kind of like that in our relationship with God. We fail to put Him first…even though we know that we should….but we’ve just been so busy lately. Maybe when life slows down we’ll have time to study our bible. I know I shouldn’t be gossiping, but this is “just between us”. Maybe I’ll miss church this Sunday but only because “I really need to catch up on a few things”. I’m just too tired to pray right now…I’ll do it later. And before we know it, we’ve strayed away from God. And once it’s too late…there’s not enough Aloe Vera in the world to cure that burn.
As I as I stand here watching my girls wait for the school bus, I once again find myself thinking about how fast they are growing up and how I wish that I could slow down time.
I snapped a picture of my girls because I know that some day I’m going to miss watching them wait for the school bus. The pic isn’t overly clear because it was so foggy, but I thought it was pretty anyway.
Fog is a strange thing. It can actually be quite beautiful. But it can also cause lots of problems and can be dangerous when you are driving because it hinders your view. It’s hard to see where you’re going. The thicker the fog, the harder it is to see. And the only thing that gets rid of the fog, is the sun.
Much like fog, sin can be quite beautiful. It can make everything look different and it can hinder our vision to the point that we can no longer see what path we should be on. And just like the fog, the only thing that can remove the sin, is the Son.
I can’t slow down time or stop my girls from growing up, just like the thickest fog can’t stop the sun from coming up. Praise God, as long as we allow Him in our life, our sin can’t survive the light of Jesus.
The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, shining brighter and brighter until midday. But the way of the wicked is like the darkest gloom; they don’t know what makes them stumble.
Proverbs 4:18-19
It is so easy to confuse a busy life with a full life. We try to pack more sports, church events, girls’ nights, boys’ nights, work, family time, and vacations into our lives than we can possibly handle. I.AM.GUILTY.OF.THIS. We want to do it all, have it all, and be it all. But if we’re trying to do, have, and be, all at once, then we get absolutely no satisfaction from it and more importantly, God gets no glory from it. Instead of focusing on everything, maybe it’s time to stop and focus on God. God is supposed to come first. He wants us totally focused on Him. He doesn’t want us to give Him an hour… or occasionally two on Sunday. He wants every decision, every activity, everything, to be based on what He wants for us. If we’re reluctant to give Him our time on Sunday, then chances are we’re not giving Him any time from the other 6 days either. God, our spouse, our children, and everything else. That is the order that He wants us to have our priorities. If we constantly try to fill up our lives with everything the world has to offer, maybe we should stop and asker ourselves, ‘Do I want a filled life, or do I want a full life?’. Fill it with Jesus and you’ll never feel empty again.
30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
Mark 12:30 ESV
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Ephesians 5:25-33 ESV
What does our faith cost us? Once upon a time I had no problem telling someone at a ticket booth that my child was a different age to save a dollar. I saved a lot of time by paying bills while I was at work instead of at home. Oh! And just think of all that extra time I had on Sunday morning because I didn’t “have to” get up & go to church…not to mention all that money of “mine” that I saved by not tithing. So my faith has cost me some money here & there…..well actually it hasn’t! Since we accepted Christ & started tithing we are in better financial shape than we’ve ever been. Mainly because we realized that we have nothing. Anything we are blessed with comes straight from God. He is just entrusting it to us. So my faith hasn’t really cost me any money. But surely it has cost me time. Actually no! It hasn’t even cost me time. You see…because Christ shed His blood on the cross…I now have everlasting life! So when you really look at it….it’s not faith that costs. It’s the lack or faith that has the big price tag hanging from it.
By The Thread 