Dec

17

Let it snow…

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Another winter upon us.

Some dread the cold season while others make their living from the snowfall.

The winter season brings with it so many memories:  the Volkswagen I saw from my childhood bedroom window that had been completely immersed in six feet or more of snow… sledding down inclines that today I’d have to think twice about… driving home on a snow emergency route just before the governor  declared the road shut down. (I was the only one on the roadway and had my pick of lanes, so I drove straight down the middle.)

I’ve danced in the snow… shoveled the snow… and watched it fall from the warm confines of a fireplace while sipping hot chocolate. I don’t recall ever creating a snowman in the snow, although I must have, right? While in school, my boyfriend-turned-husband made a snow alligator. He is not a conformist by any stretch.

While I’m not so sentimental that I look forward to a white Christmas–that’s for the Hallmark Family. Nor am I particularly looking forward to celebrating Christmas just on December 25th. For me, that would be anti-climatic, since I celebrate the birth of  Messiah Jesus every day of the year.

I rejoice with you all that the reason for the season is all about Him. May your hearts embrace Him this season and throughout the year.

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Dec

12

Stay focused

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How comforting to know that the Lord is on the throne.

When I’d first heard that statement, I had to process it. It had come from someone at my church who’d been looking for a job and things didn’t look bright–at least, not from the world’s perspective. I’d felt so sorry for him, and while he kept studying for a test to allow him the opportunity to apply for a particular position, he kept flunking. Sometimes by just a few points. At one point at church, he said, “It’s okay… God’s still on the throne.”

He had such peace about it. While I was “fretting” for him, he seemed perfectly content.

God is still on the throne. He always is and was and will be… How comforting to know that His word is true, and while on the throne, we as believers are in His grace. All we need to remember is to keep our eyes on Jesus, and He will give us peace–not as the world does. It’s deeper and more abiding than anything the word can offer.

May God strengthen your walk with Him as you receive His peace on your journey today.

Dec

04

Gratitude

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Is there anything too small to say to God, “Thank you”? Do only special things require thanks… or the grand or unexpected?

These exceptional times are worthy of our gratitude, but God’s word says, “…in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

Giving thanks honors God. When we realize that God is the source of our blessings, we make Him the recipient of our undying gratitude and entrust Him with our total dependence.

When we are not thankful, seeds of thanklessness are able to easily root… Ingratitude leads to murmuring, complaining, and pettiness. A sense of pride and focus on ourselves become the tares that may eventually choke out our joy and lend to bitterness.

A bitter person has no hope. Hopelessness leads to depression. At all costs, we should continually use our tongues and hearts to give praise to God. When we focus on this instead of ourselves, God is sure to inhabit the praise of His people and the benefit of this is priceless.

Nov

27

A day to give thanks…

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The celebration of Thanksgiving has always been associated with a peaceful feast between the first natives to our land–the Indians–and the Pilgrims. When the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts Bay, they found only one living Patuxet Indian, a man named Squanto who had survived slavery in England and knew their language. He taught them to grow corn, to fish, and negotiated a peace treaty between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Nation. At the end of their first year, the Pilgrims held a great feast honoring Squanto and the Wampanoags and thanked God for their good fortune and bounty.

While skirmishes and raids between the Indians and the “white” men had occurred over the years, historical revisionists would have us believe that these dreadful incidents should preclude our positive feelings and/or happiness about our national holiday.

My take? While history should not repeat itself, it usually does by those who do not understand that sin in this world is always the source of our struggles. Until man recognizes that he is not able to overcome sin in his own strength and, most importantly, that he is not master over himself but God is, there will be struggles, evil, and trials on the earth.

Thanksgiving has been observed in different ways throughout the centuries… During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress issued various proclamations for national days of prayer and giving thanks, usually in November and December.

In 1789, George Washington said he wanted the people to be thankful “for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed.”

The proclamation also makes it clear that the Thanksgiving Day, in Washington’s opinion, should be a day of prayer, especially for lawmakers and government officials.

It was President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 who issued the next major Thanksgiving Day proclamation, and every President since Lincoln has issued an annual proclamation.

“I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”

Nov

18

Our new president

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Whether you voted for Donald Trump or not, he is our 45th president of the land of the free. Whether you like him or not, I believe this man has been chosen by God to rule. Like God has used men of ancient times to do God’s bidding; i.e., King Cyrus, Donald Trump will be used as well.

I’m saddened by the rioting in the streets that comes from those who are claiming to be afraid and fearful of their future in America. As though their rights are going to be taken away because the GOP is now in power? Who is ginning up this fear?

For so long, our country has been directed by socialist leaning leadership that would have America be a country that we need to somehow pardon… that we should be ashamed somehow of our nation and that someone needs to change it.1868211031 Through a scope of liberalism, our leadership was bound to take America down–slowly, through a thousand cuts–and guide its passage into a global, one-world, borderless free market entity… down an abyss and devoid of God. This was the plan. But it’s been thwarted–for now.

With Donald Trump in power, I believe God has given America a chance to redeem our country from the brink of the unimaginable. May God continue to use our country’s leadership to bring about His plans and protocols for America and that we would remain free to share the Gospel.