The Guardian of Joy

I got up while it was still dark and poured myself a cup of hot coffee then went out to sit and watch the Sun rise. Though the house had been warmed by lack of air conditioning and closed widows as soon as I stepped out onto the porch the I was greeted by the gentle cool breeze of morning. Everyone in the house was sleeping but here on the porch I could hear the voice of the birds who had, like me, awaken before the dawn.

I sat drinking in the serenity around me letting my soul awaken to the beauty that I was often to busy to notice. This morning I chose to receive the gift of singing birds, cool air perfumed by honey suckle, and the gentle glow of the moon slowly being replaced by the radiance and splendor of the Sun. I took a deep breath and inhaled the joy that comes in the morning.

I have a daily invitation to open my heart and receive this gift of joy. Before the day begins I pause to praise the one who is the Most High, all-powerful, good Lord giver of all blessings. Before my mind has time to be filled with the business of the day I choose to fill it with the truth that God's mercy is fresh and new every morning.

As I watch the dawning of this new day I am aware that the praise that I express becomes the guardian of joy. All day I will be surrounded by this beauty and God's provisions but when I cease to appreciate the gift and become more aware of the need than the provision and my joy is lost. But I have learned that the peace, joy and serenity of the morning can be guarded when I choose to praise God even during the busiest day.

Lord, as I get ready to start a new day please help me not to forget to open my eyes throughout this day and see the evidence of Your love that surrounds me.

The Picture of the Sailor

I close my eyes and I am once more a little girl sitting close beside my grandmother. We sit wrapped in a blanket of love staring up at a picture on her wall. In the picture a young sailor is smiling back at us. The sailor is my grandmother's son, my father.

My grandmother's voice becomes soft the years slip away and she speaks. Through her eyes I can see this sailor not as a young man but as a child. "When I sent him off to school,' she says quietly, 'I would wait and watch until he turned around and waved one last time then I would go back inside. He would always turn to wave and I would always wait."

Grandmother's stories draw me back in time, the love with which she speaks of my father washes away the years and I, his child, watch him grow through her eyes. The child becomes a man. The little boy she had stood waiting for to turn around for one last glance goes off to war. Her arm around me tightens but her eyes never leave the picture of the sailor.

My grandmother never grew tired of telling the story of the sailor and I never grew tired of listening. We shared this special bond of love, she for her son and I for my father. Wrapped up in this blanket of love I saw the man who was my father through the loving eyes of his mother.

Rocking To Nowhere

I found this quote today, "Anxiety is like a rocking chair it gives you something to do but it doesn't get you anywhere." I think I know that rocking chair. I also think that if you sit in it that there are invisible straps that bind you to that chair. You begin to rock faster and faster and faster till your mind becomes a blur of anxious confusion. But I also know how to be set free.

Anxiety is a feeling of being nervous or uneasy about something that you don't have control over. It's kind of strange that something you don't have control over can have so much power over you. Freedom is only found by not surrendering to anxiety but by surrendering to the only One who is in control. "In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears." (Psalms 18:6)

When I was a little girl and I would be awaken by a nightmare my mother would have me tell her my dream. As I began to put into words my tangled thoughts they lost their grip on me. I find the same thing to be true when in obedience to God's word I choose not to be anxious but instead to come to my Heavenly Father in prayer. I first let myself look up and see Him seated on the throne and then I hear Him inviting me, as His child, to bring my worries and concern to Him.

When I choose to believe that God has power over the things I have no power over and I put my confidence and expectation in Him that is hope in action. However, when I choose to open my heart and give thanks to Him before I actually see the answer that's faith. This combination of hope and faith dispels the confusion of anxiety and frees me to experience in stead the peace of God.

Lord Jesus by faith I come to You with a grateful heart. I thank you for the peace of God that surpasses all understanding and that guards my heart and my mind in You.

The Cure For Clutter is a Heart Set On Pilgramiage

"I'm going to reduce my footprint by 70%." I've been thinking about what my friend told me. To reduce her footprint by 70% she had to go through a lifetime of things and decide what to keep and what to let go of. I look around me at my collection of things and wonder what it would be like to reduce my footprint by 70%.

I remember when I was a young woman collecting mementos. I wanted to have something tangible to remind me of a special event that had taken place. When my children came I wanted to hold onto special toys or clothes to remind me of each stage of their life. I have four children and it didn't take long before the pile of mementos grew to an alarming size.

For the last year I have been going through the things Ma Belle and Papa left behind. Daily I have made decisions about what to keep and what to do with what I keep. Many things that were in their house came from generations past. This has served to remind me that though I use the things I have someday I will leave and the things will stay.

One day a man came to Jesus and said,"'I will follow you wherever you go.' And Jesus said to him, 'Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.'...Yet another said,'I will follow you, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.' Jesus said to him,'No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom.'" (Luke 9:57-62)

Lord, help me to set my heart on pilgrimage and not to hold to tightly to the mementos I collect along the way.

Using His Words To Express What I Want to Say

"And the LORD came and stood, calling as at other times,"Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said , "Speak, for your servant hears."(1 Samuel 3:10) I remember when I was a child and I like Samuel learned to recognize the voice of God. My grandmother did for me what Eli did for Samuel she taught me that when I opened the word of God to say, "Speak LORD, your servant is listening."

When I was a teenager I began reading through the Bible. When I came to Psalm 119 I camped there reading it over and over. I felt like I had been invited into a conversation that I had been longing to find the words for. "With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments!...I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me!"

I found in this Psalm requests that I, like the Psalmist, wanted to make. "Make me understand the way of your precepts...Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law!...Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statues...Give me understanding...Lead me in the path of your              commandments...Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain!...Let your steadfast love come to me, O LORD, your salvation according to your promise; then shall I have an answer for him who taunts me, for I trust in your word."

Of all the prayer requests I find in this Psalm the last one best describes my relationship with LORD, "I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments" (Psalm 119:176) For me this says it all. I came to Him because I heard Him calling to me. I wanted to be obedient to follow His ways but again and again my prayer has been one of a lost sheep. I don't forget the LORD's commandment but somehow in the confusion of life I seem to have forgotten my way home.

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming as a shepherd. You came to seek and to save the lost. Thank You for showing me that when I have become lost and confused that I can call out to You and You will find me and bring me back home.

Listening to the News While Waiting for His Kingdom

"Mimi, turn it off!" I had been listening to the radio when the news came on. What my grandchildren heard caused them to respond in horror. First there had been the story of a man who had held three women captive in his basement followed by a story of a doctor who had killed babies with a snip of his scissors. I pushed the button quickly and turned it off.

Listening to the news I thought about the contrast between what is happening in our world and the sermon on the mount where Jesus describes the kingdom of heaven. I whispered the prayer that so often enters my heart, "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." I am struck as I often am by the now but not yet aspect to the kingdom of heaven.

I see the "now" of the kingdom when I read in Ephesians that when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, God had mercy on us. My mind goes back to what I heard on the news and I marvel that God could love us with such a great love that even when we were dead in our trespasses He made us alive together with Christ-- purely by His grace-- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places. When I received this gift of grace through faith I also became part of his kingdom.

"Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Daily I seek to line my heart up with His will but there is more to the kingdom of heaven than that, there is the "not yet." When I read in Revelation about the kingdom that is coming I read, "'Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.' Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they my enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood."(Revelation 22:12-15)

Lord Jesus, I believe that there will come a day when You will reign, "where'er the sun doth his successive journeys run; your kingdom stretch from shore to shore, til moons shall wax and wane no more." I pray today that You will reign in my heart.

Are You Having One of Those Days?

Have you ever had one of those days when you could feel the murmuring, complaining spirit rising up in you demanding an audience? Yesterday was one of those days, I just felt grumpy! While I was feeling grumpy and desiring to give that feeling an expression by grumbling a scripture passage kept coming to mind. It was the story of the children of Israel going through the wilderness.

God was leading them to the Promised Land through the wilderness. The wilderness wasn't comfortable and their response was to murmur and complain. In their heart they were rebelling against God's leadership. I kept thinking about this yesterday that sometimes when God leads me to a place of promise and deliverance it involves going on a path I don't want to go.

Wilderness have a way of exposing the heart. I didn't want to be grumpy yesterday I just was. I didn't want to rebel against the path God had chosen for me that day but I wasn't exactly sure how not to and then another scripture came to mind, "With my whole heart I cry out; answer me, O Lord! I will keep your statutes. I call to you; save me, that I may observe your testimonies."(Psalms 119:145,146)

The wilderness exposes my vulnerability and my dependence on God. In the wilderness I am faced with a choice to rebel against the God who led me here or cry out to Him for help. In my struggle in the wilderness I experience the triune God. Selwyn Hughes spoke about the trinity as, "God above us, God among us, God within us. The Father in majesty, the Son in suffering, the Spirit in striving." In the wilderness my heart seeks for the Father, is grateful for the Son and totally dependent on the Spirit.

Father, thank you for Your word. Your word teaches me that faith comes by hearing Your word. When I read about how You led the children of Israel through the wilderness I see that even though they rebelled against You You provided for them. Their clothes didn't wear out and their feet didn't blister or swell. During times of testing let me cry out to You in the power of the Spirit so that I can see Your provision instead of just grumbling.