Tag Archives: life

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You Are Mine

Photo by Rosie Sun on Unsplash

Know that the LORD is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.

An unexpected phone text alerted me to a prayer meeting being held at my church. I hadn’t heard about it previously, but apparently these prayer meetings had started a couple of months before. The last line of the text is what gripped me:  I believe it will be another milestone in the life of our church as we seek the face of God together. 

Who could turn that down? After a hurried dinner, my husband, grown daughter and I headed off to church.

When we arrived, there were about a dozen or so people already seated. Our worship leader was quietly strumming his guitar, and people were chatting. I saw many people I knew, but there were a few faces I did not recognize. Others slipped in quietly and the number quickly doubled.

He led out His people like sheep and guided them like a flock in the wilderness. Psalm 78:52

We began with music, worshipping our Savior and Creator as we lifted our voices in praise, adoration and thankfulness. There wasn’t a choir, and no full worship team, but instead a guitarist and a vocalist – and it was perfect.

The leader then boldly stood before us and spoke about how the Lord speaks to His people today. He stated that the primary way the Lord speaks is through His Word, the Bible. But how does He speak when we are not reading our Bibles? Does He stop speaking? No, absolutely not. He speaks in a myriad of ways. The Holy Spirit speaks to us through our everyday life – through nature, through songs we hear, through things we see, through our emotions and through people, just to name a few – but He will never speak in ways that contradict the Bible.

He then asked us to turn in the Bible to John 10:1-10, and instructed us to pay attention to any particular verse stood out to us as he read. We were then to read the passage silently to ourselves, and ask the Lord to speak to us.

“Truly, truly I say to you, the one who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. But the one who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep listen to his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he puts all his own sheep outside, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. However, a stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus told them this figure of speech, but they did not understand what the things which He was saying to them meant. So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All those who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly.” John 10:1-10

For me, it was verse 3:  To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out.

Immediately I remembered a time that I had spent with the Lord several years ago. I had been talking with Him when suddenly I saw a picture. In the picture, the Lord was holding my left hand, and was writing on my palm. He drew a heart, and then began writing something inside the heart. When He was finished, I looked at my hand and saw the word “MINE.”

But now, this is what the LORD says, He who is your Creator, Jacob, and He who formed you, Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine!” Isaiah 43:1

Are you His sheep? Can you hear Him calling your name? He is calling, because His Word says that He desires for all to come to repentance. He loves you, and longs for you to follow Him. Call Him by His name, and He will hear you. Jesus. Yeshua. Start the conversation.

Then we Your people, the sheep of Your pasture, will thank You forever; from generation to generation we will declare Your praise. Psalm 79:13

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Enjoy

Photo by Isaac Del Toro on Unsplash

This post is part of a writing challenge I took part in to stretch my writing. Five Minute Friday’s word for the day was “Enjoy.” This is spontaneous writing in only 5 minutes.

Children are indeed a heritage from the LORD, and the fruit of the womb is His reward. Psalm 127:3

Beeping. A muffled sound of beeping filled the room, growing in volume. What on earth? My eyes swept the room to determine the source of this intrusion that disturbed the quietness. Narrowing it down to a specific area, I ventured toward the sound.

The offender? An old MP3 charging base, forgotten about and never unpacked during a move several months before. It had sat, neglected, waiting to be of use again when just the right location presented itself. Only it hadn’t, and so it sat, until in desperation, the low battery signal voiced its complaint.

“Remember,” it seemed to say. “Remember.”

I didn’t want to take the time to attend to it now, but that incessant beeping continued. Sighing, I removed the charging base from its protective case and sat down. I tried to pry the back open with my fingers, but the plastic battery compartment lid was brittle, and a piece of it broke off.

I sighed again. “Fine,” I stated impatiently, as I went off in search of a screwdriver. Quickly finding one, I sat again and picked up the base. The screwdriver accomplished the task easily, and I removed the batteries, glad that it had been relatively simple.

But still the beeping continued.

“Remember.”

Examining the base again, I found a smaller compartment that looked as if it might hold another battery. This one opened easily, and I removed the small, round battery without difficulty. 

The noise immediately stopped.

Picking up the case, I removed the MP3 player that I had safely tucked into an interior pocket. 

“Hello, old friend,” I whispered.

Glancing around the room again, I was determined to find a place for them once and for all. Rearranging books, a lamp, and a plant on a nearby table, I sat the base in the space I had made. Finding a nearby outlet, I plugged it in. I set the MP3 player on the base and struggled to remember how it even worked. I must have hit the right combination of buttons because suddenly music filled the air and it immediately transported me back in time. 

Yes, I remember.

My children were very young then. Almost every night, we had snuggled and said our bedtime prayers together, and we would finish by singing the chorus to the song that was now playing: 

Jesus, Keeper of this life

You are my Refuge, my Savior, my Guide

Watch over this little one tonight

Guard his every footstep as he travels this life

And in some quiet moment draw him to Your side

That he may come to know You, Jesus

As the Keeper of this life.

We adapted the lyrics slightly to cover all of my children. We would end with hugs and kisses, and I would sleep well, knowing that the Lord had heard.

But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them! For the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Matthew 19:14

The children grew older, we would have another child, and would move and have other disruptions to our nightly ritual, and eventually we stopped singing the song.

My eyes filled with tears as I relived the memory of those precious times with my little ones. They are grown now, but they remember. In a nostalgic moment, my daughter recently confided that she will do the same with the children she will have some day.

Enjoy your little ones. Treasure all the moments you can, because they will pass quickly. Enjoy every moment.

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

The Keeper, Geoff Moore & The Distance

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A Lesson in Sudoku

Photo by John Morgan on Unsplash (cropped)

“You have taken account of my wanderings. Put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?” Psalm 56:8

Lately I have been going through a tough time, and have repeatedly cried out to the Lord to have it end. Enough already! Uncle!! This is me, waving my white flag!

The Lord always gets His points across in unusual ways, doesn’t He?

This morning I was playing a game of sudoku on my phone. You know, they say that brain games keep our minds sharp (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it).

I set the game on the medium setting. Not too easy, but not so challenging that it is discouraging.

I’m not sure how others play, but I have a system. I begin with the number 1, and go in order through the numbers, repeating until I have completed the game – unless an obvious move jumps out at me. I played the number 1, and placed all 9 of them on the board in one round. I then played the number 2, and placed all of them in one round. “Wow, that’s surprising,” I thought.

Number 3 was the same, followed by 4, and then 5. When I got to number 6, I couldn’t place them all, but I placed all the 7s and 9s. I only had to repeat numbers 6 and 8 one time each, and then the game was over.

There was no challenge at all. It was so easy. It was actually pretty… dull.

I quickly understood the object of the lesson the Lord was teaching me. If things were as easy as I would like them to be, my life, too, would be dull. It is anything but that!

Imagine planning a trip to your favorite amusement or theme park. You’ve rented the car, booked the hotel, and purchased the tickets online at a discount. You have a cooler full of snacks and drinks to help ease the long drive, and you set off, eagerly anticipating your arrival.

You step foot inside the park and see toddler rides. A carousel here, a giant swing over there. You keep walking and find more of the same. You eventually cover the entire park, completely baffled. Where are the water rides? Where are the adventure rides? Where are the rollercoasters?

You inquire of a worker and discover that the park owners had played it safe and stuck to the gentler, smoother rides. You feel kind of cheated. You came all this way for… dull?

“Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly – as infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for solid food. In fact, you are still not ready, for you are still worldly.” 1 Corinthians 3:1-3

“When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. When I became a man, I did away with childish things.” 1 Corinthians 13:11

King David didn’t play it safe. Neither did Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Noah, Joseph, Samson, John the Baptist, Peter, Paul or Jesus, Yeshua. They lived, they conquered, and their lives inspire us to do the same.

As always, You’re right, Lord. The easiest path is not the most rewarding. Help us to remember that Your plans are good, and that You are growing us up into the mature believers that You created us to be.

“As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the bones are formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.” Ecclesiastes 11:5

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash