Wow!

From the rising to the setting of the sun
is the name of the LORD to be praised.
High above all nations is the LORD;
above the heavens is his glory.

Psalm 113

Next time you are outside or near a window, REALLY look at what you see…..

Who but God can create the colors you see?
Who but God can create the diversity of what you see?
Who but God could create such detail – so much of that you cannot see!
Who but God can be constantly re-creating what you see?

Let the joy of the amazing love that creates all you see fill you!

Awesome God!!!

For Journaling….

When I look at what God has created, I feel….

I take care of all God gives me by…..

I hear God saying to me…..

From Complaining to Thank You

“Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb,
and naked shall I go back again.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the Lord!”

In all this Job did not sin,
nor did he say anything disrespectful of God.

Full reading – Job 1:6-22

Lord, you know how often I forget this! Everything I have and am come from you – but yet I act like it is all my doing and all things are mine. You gift me with my talents and give me the opportunity to do what I love to do – and I complain because I’m not making as much money as I would like or think I need to make.

You put such awesome people in my life who share their lives with me, show me how much You love me – and I complain because they irritate me once in awhile.

You give me a home to live in, food on my table, clothes to wear – and I complain or wish for different, just because.

I breathe, my muscles move, I feel, I see, hear, taste, touch and smell, I think and process, and on and on and on – and yet I complain.

I am so sorry, Lord, for my ingratitude! And I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all these gifts and those I don’t see as gifts.

“Blessed be the name of the Lord!”

For Journaling…

I thank you, Lord, for giving me….

When I complain, I….

I hear God saying to me…..

Gifts Freely Given to Us

Brothers and sisters:
The Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God.
Among men, who knows what pertains to the man
except his spirit that is within?
Similarly, no one knows what pertains to God except the Spirit of God.
We have not received the spirit of the world
but the Spirit who is from God,
so that we may understand the things freely given us by God.
And we speak about them not with words taught by human wisdom,
but with words taught by the Spirit,
describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms.

Now the natural man does not accept what pertains to the Spirit of God,
for to him it is foolishness, and he cannot understand it,
because it is judged spiritually.
The one who is spiritual, however, can judge everything
but is not subject to judgment by anyone.

For “who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to counsel him?”
But we have the mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:10-16

I don’t think we realize or appreciate what a gift we have in the Spirit!

We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God.

I don’t think we even come close to opening that gift! In many cases, we don’t even see the things freely given us by God, much less understand them. There are all the physical things freely given to us by God and I write about those often…. But what about the graces that are freely given?
– The ability to forgive
– The ability to understand what someone else is experiencing
– Compassion
– Anger at injustice
– Wanting to help others when possible
– The longing for something (Someone) more
– The pull to pray and spend time with God
– The ability to love
– The ability to sacrifice for those we love – and even more so, those we don’t love
– And on and on

Aren’t those things how Jesus lived his life?

But we have the mind of Christ.

For Journaling…

I show I have the ‘mind of Christ’ when I…..

I can be more aware of the ‘gifts freely given us by God’ by….

I hear God saying to me….

God, Come With Me…

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Stay awake!
For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.
Be sure of this:
if the master of the house
had known the hour of night when the thief was coming,
he would have stayed awake
and not let his house be broken into.
So too, you also must be prepared,
for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.

Full reading – Matthew 24:42-51

Stay awake! Don’t get complacent. Don’t procrastinate in spending time with God. We don’t know when he is coming – and that’s a little late to regret procrastinating!

When you feel that pull to spend time with God or when the thought pops into your head to pray or read your bible, follow it. That’s grace at work!!

And is whatever you choose to do instead really that important in the grand scheme of things – like your spending eternity with God? Or maybe the invitation is to invite God to be part of whatever it is you need to do….

Have you washed dishes with God? Or mowed the lawn? Or folded laundry? Or fixed the car? Or……. Have you invited God to help you with balancing your checkbook? Or cooking dinner? Or cleaning the house? Have you invited God to go with you on your walk or run? Or workout with you?

You can’t give God a greater gift than to invite him to be with you consciously! Be prepared to be surprised when you let God be part of whatever you are doing!

For Journaling…

Today I am inviting God to be with me when I….

I tend to put off spending time with God because…

I hear God saying to me….

I Pray For You…

We always pray for you,
that our God may make you worthy of his calling
and powerfully bring to fulfillment every good purpose
and every effort of faith,
that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you,
and you in him,
in accord with the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ.

Full reading – 2 Thessalonians 1:1-5,11-12

Who do you pray for in this way? Who needs your prayerful spiritual support?

We take and take and take and then demand more from those in ministry. And if they happen to be having a bad day or struggling with something or overwhelmed with all their responsibilities, we are surprised and then condemn them for being human.

A priest who is a friend commented the other day to me, “I couldn’t begin to do what I do every day without the prayers said for me every day.” My birthday present to him earlier this year was the promise to pray intentionally for him every day. This is what I use for the basis of that prayer for him.

To be a good parent in today’s society is hard! What parent wouldn’t benefit from and love to have the powerful prayer above said for them? Wouldn’t you?

What could be more loving than praying this way for members of your family? What friend couldn’t use prayers like these said for them?

What greater gift than prayer can we give anyone? Who do you pray for?

For Journaling…

I will pray the prayer above daily for…

…… really needs me to pray for them.

I hear God saying to me….

Stony Hearts and New Hearts

I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you,
taking from your bodies your stony hearts
and giving you natural hearts…
you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

Full reading – Ezekiel 69:23-28

What a gift! From the moment we are created, God claims us as his own, yet giving us our freedom to walk away from that love.

Many of us have hearts that are beaten up and wounded by life and by those who we thought loved us. God takes those wounded hearts and constantly places a new spirit within us – a spirit of forgiveness, a spirit of understanding, a spirit of compassion. He takes our stony hearts of anger and revenge and fear and gives us hearts now ready to understand others who are wounded so we can show God and his love to them.

When we can be ‘God with skin’ to others, then we are God’s people. When we allow God to replace our stony hearts with hearts full of his love, then he is OUR God.

What a gift! Not always an easy gift but the things really worthwhile are never easy….

For Journaling…

God has changed my stony heart to a new heart when….

I am ‘God with skin’ to others when I….

I hear God saying to me….

Groan….

Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
“Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive him?
As many as seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.

Full reading – Matthew 18:21-19:1

I groaned when I saw this as the scripture for today. I don’t like this one. It challenges me to be more than I am, to go beyond my comfort zone. It invites me to let go of the anger and resentment that sometimes feels so good wrapped around me. But when I’ve indulged in my self-pity and many times acted out of that ugly place in me, it doesn’t feel good at all! I’m not hurting the person who hurt me – I’m hurting myself and the innocent bystanders who end up taking the brunt of my anger and resentment.

And when the person I need to forgive is me, the fallout is twice if not three times as destructive. What about yourself eats you up? What do you refuse to think about? What fills you with shame?

Take those things and feelings and have an honest conversation with God about them. There is no need to be ashamed in bringing them to God – he already knows it all and loves you through it. It’s not so much that we need God’s forgiveness as we need to forgive ourselves.

If you are really struggling with forgiving someone else, try looking in the mirror first, and start there – WITH GOD!!! Don’t try to do it by yourself – we can’t. “With God, all things are possible.”

For Journaling…

I want to forgive myself for…

When I think about God loving me in the midst of my shame and anger, I feel…

I hear God saying to me…

Attentive to Faith

Beloved:
We did not follow cleverly devised myths
when we made known to you
the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.
For he received honor and glory from God the Father
when that unique declaration came to him from the majestic glory,
“This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven
while we were with him on the holy mountain.
Moreover, we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable.
You will do well to be attentive to it,
as to a lamp shining in a dark place,
until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

2 Peter 1:16-19

Faith is such a hard thing to grab on to. We can’t hold it in our hands or point to it or even image it. And yet it is so real! It’s not a myth as we hear Peter say today but he has been an eyewitness of God’s majesty.

Faith is a gift that we need to be attentive to, nourishing it and safeguarding it, or it will slip away.

God’s presence in our lives is a lamp shining in a dark place. Are you using your faith to light those dark corners or focusing only on the darkness? Faith takes work! We can sit and complain about all that we don’t like in our lives or we can look for God’s presence and action in the midst of the tough stuff.

How are you being attentive to this most precious of gifts?

For Journaling…

I am attentive to my gift of faith by….

I let my faith light the dark corners of my life when I ….

I hear God saying to me…

Clinging to God

For, as close as the loincloth clings to a man’s loins,
so had I made the whole house of Israel
and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the LORD;
to be my people, my renown, my praise, my beauty.
But they did not listen.

Full reading – Jeremiah 13:1-11

God wants – created us for – an intimate relationship with him.

God uses images we can understand. A loincloth in our terms is underwear. That’s how close, how intimate, God wants to be with us. That’s how God wants us to cling to him. What an invitation!!! There is no greater gift or invitation that God could give us.

In the rest of this scripture, God tells Jeremiah to go buy a loincloth (underwear) and wear it. Then God tells Jeremiah to go hide the loincloth in a rocky cliff and leave it. After some time, God tells Jeremiah to go back and get the loincloth – but when Jeremiah pulls it out, it has rotted.

It’s the same way with our relationship with God. If we just put our relationship with God away, it will rot. ‘Clinging’ is an active word, not passive!

How intimate is your relationship with God? Are you letting Him come that close? Are you clinging to Him? Or have you put that relationship in ‘a rocky cliff’?

For Journaling….

I cling to God when…..

I let God come close to me when….

I hear God saying to me….

What do you See and Hear?

“But blessed are your eyes, because they see,
and your ears, because they hear.
Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people
longed to see what you see but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”

Full reading – Matthew 13:10-17

Do you and I really appreciate what we see and what we hear? Do we really understand what we see and what we hear?

We see in scripture and we hear the very words of Jesus and the amazing promises he makes to us! Do we really see and hear?

Do not be afraid…
The kingdom of heaven is at hand…
Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for justice, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted because of me……
Rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven….
Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.
And on and on and on!!!

If you and I really heard those words, how different would our lives be?

We are graced to be able to see and to hear – the challenge is to let it make a difference inside us!
For Journaling…

What in scripture do I really see and hear?

How do the things I see and hear change me?

I hear God saying to me…..