Moments

  Did you forget to drink?  Most of the I did forget.  Working outside I get so involved in my projects that my thirst goes unnoticed  and I go on and on, until  fatigue sets in making me stop.  It is only then that I find the water and at first sip realize just how thirsty I have been all this time.  So I find in my thirst for God. Life gets so involved and all encompassing and urgency is often the theme of the day.  And when things go awry and I have to stop.  Then it is that  I finally get still that I begin to realize how much I have needed God all along.  I was thirst and didn't know it.  I didn't drink of His goodness.  I didn't trust Him in the midst of the storm.  I didn't bring Him into my urgencies or my everyday life.   God has instilled within us a thirst for Him that only He can satisfy.   Now, I am terribly thirsty. Come close, He says, and place your burdens upon Me.  Come close...

My septic field line was stopped up. Nothing seemed to work until  I dug a large hole over the line and took a chain saw to the sewer pipe.  Things  happened.  With some help from a  high pressure water hose the blockage started coming loose. However the large hole I was spread eagled over began to fill up.  In fact, I was so stretched out over the large hole that I knew it would be tenuous to get out of that position.  I tried and it was going OK  until I slipped a bit on wet clay and I started on a fall. Not wanted to fall into the large hole of filling sewer, I quickly rolled the side and somehow managed to stay on the edge of the hole and finally rolled myself over wet sewer mud to get out. Looking back it was a funny but pleasant experience.  I was OK  The line came unclogged, the water in the hole went down and it all ended well.  Not a bad day...thanks God. Life has had me stretched out about to fall into the sewers of life b...

  New Years Day, resolution time for some.  There are lots of ways and resolutions to improve our lives we think.  Most fall impotent before "the way it has always been," after a short time. Maybe a big reason  at this is because we are resolving to lift ourselves up, improve ourselves?  Maybe these are futile efforts at self-determinism. Perhaps, we didn't "seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you." (Matt 6:33) ? Seek His righteousness?  First? Does that mean we need to get closer to God and His righteousness?  If so, How do we do that?   When I go to church, I take a bath, shave, put on clean clothes.  To approach God and get close, perhaps we need to ask God to help us clean up for church, so to speak. " Search me and, O God, and know my heart:  try me and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way  in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." (Psalm 139:23...

  "With the dawn redeeming grace"   Christmas isn't about a child only but the birth of a child who came to be our way to redeeming grace.  He didn't come as Christ our child in the manager but as "Christ the Lord.  "Jesus, Lord at thy birth."   He was already Lord, already our Saviour.  There is much more going on here at Christmas than a simple birthday party for Jesus.  It is something  of a birthday party for us as well because now, because of the Christ child, we can be born again unto newness of life. Merry Christmas because Christ the Saviour is born and, in a sense so are we.

  Things get more different every year with Christmas.  As sanctification goes on over the years, things don't change, but I do.  Christmas is less fanfare but more real each year.  Christmas is the first step to the cross and the angels celebrated His coming.  Do you suppose the angels knew the "rest of the story"  when they announced the birth of the Christ child? He came first to the marginalized: the shepherds, who were  "in the same country."  "We three kings came from a ways off and had to follow a star to get there. And didn't Jesus later say that  "The last shall be first and the first last?"   And then there is the lowly carpenter stepfather Joseph who didn't want to put Mary away when she came up pregnant.  This same Joseph,  angels visited in dreams, and he believed and obeyed.  He must have been a pretty great guy to begin with because God chose him for this task.  He must have been close to God alrea...

  There is a risk in telling a joke. You could look like a fool and no one gets it or they get it but don't see the humor. Based on their life situations past and present, some can't see much joy, happiness, or humor in much of anything. It's easy to fall into that trap.  I've been there before. It is easier and less risky personally, to be negative, and pessimistic about everything. Bah- Humbug is a piece of cake which is why most of us fall into that hole from time to time.  It takes guts, it takes God to find joy in this fallen world.  We may have been beaten up so much in the past, and the future doesn't look that great either.  So consequently, people are afraid to trust happiness, to take the risk to laugh, to smile, to say something is good, and to have the courage not to be turned aside because of the probability that there will be some who will think they are crazy.    Live long enough and we'll find that happiness and joy leave us vulnerable....