My mom tells me that my house is decorated one step above the amish. :-) Ok so I'm a very simple decorator and my technical skills aren't much better. When I can't figure out the tv remote I have to call my younger son for help. Remote controls are for the tv but how many of us live our lives like a remote control. Some of us are stuck on "rewind" - always living in the past. We either dwell on past failures or relive past victories. I tell my children when I've had to discpline them. "Son, I want you to forget the guilt you feel with this sin and remember the lesson you've learned." Why? Because guilt doesn't do anything for you. If you've asked God to forgive you and sought to make it right with the person you've wronged; continuing to feel guilty over it helps no one. God tells us in Heb.8:12b ... "and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." Use the past to remind you of what God has done but don't dwell there. There are those who live in "fast forward" mode. Not content with today they think happiness will come when circumstances change. They are what I call "emotional vagabonds" ... 'I'll be happy if I get ..' 'I'll be happy if this changes'. We worry about tomorrow. We fantasize about tomorrow. We do everything but live in today. While looking to the future can be a source of hope and joy especially when we look to eternity; we can't live our lives thinking that if only this circumstance would change I would be happy. Life is not a remote control. God gives us TODAY to serve Him and to reach others for Him. Pastor preached a sermon, "The Joy of Christian Contentment" that would be a great source of encouragement if you are reading with this with a remote in your hand. So put the remote down and start looking to what God has for you TODAY. God bless.
If you listen to some preachers you would think, "If I obey, EVERYTHING is going to go my way." That is simply not biblical. Pastor has been preaching on Elijah on Wednesday evenings. One Wednesday evening he taught on the brook Cherith and Elijah's obedience. Elijah was doing right. He was a great prophet of God, but his life was certainly not a life of ease. In I Kings 17 we find him next to a brook that is slowly drying up. He is being fed by ravens. He was ALONE. All this because he was doing right. Where was the easy life in this chapter after all the brook was slowly drying up! We see God's daily provision for His child when the Bible tells us the ravens brought him food morning and evening. What amazes me in this chapter is what I find in verse 9 (God is speaking) "Arise, get thee to Zarephath..." In verse 7 it tells us the brook had dried up already and yet the amazing thing isn't in what Elijah did it is what he did NOT do. He stayed put. God told him to "Arise". In other words, Elijah was staying put until he was told to move. Last Thanksgiving we had a few elderly saints come to our house for brunch. Our first guests were just arriving when the fire alarm went off. I want you to imagine a 50 year old woman with a tea towel appearing as if she were having a seizure while standing under the smoke detector - that would have been me :-). I did not even take a moment to pray I just went to seizure mode! Must DO something! I was able to chuckle about it .. once I was able to close windows :-) God wants us to look to Him when the "brooks dry up" in our lives. Be still. I don't have to scheme; I need to trust. Exodus 14:13 "And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever." I would have never been reminded of this had I not gone to our mid-week prayer meeting. I encourage you to not forsake the assembling of yourselves... Obey but obedience doesn't equal ease; however, God will sustain.
When my niece and her huband and family go on vacation, I'm usually the one who goes out to help take care of her animals. I rather enjoy it except she has a cow who is a bit moody. She isn't a sweet lovable milk producer nope she sometimes acts like she wants to cause me harm. Can you imagine , "I'm so sorry for your loss. How did your wife die?" Oh she got trampled by a cow. Somehow that just seems so wrong. It just so happened that the last time I was taking care of her that we were to get a very bitter cold streak. I needed to pen her in the barn which meant visions of trampling were dancing in my head. I got her in and I shut the barn door. Well I had water her. I open the door; she is swinging her head around, making a weird noise, and then she put her head down towards me. Honestly, I'm doing all this for her benefit!!! Why can't this bovine get that in her head? No worries, she and I both survived and she was safe and sound. I left the barn and the Lord brought to mind how many times He asks me to do something and I act just like her. He points out something in our lives and tells us it needs refined or removed. Instead of seeing it as a loving heavenly Father taking care of us we are like that crazy cow and we want to fight to keep it, after all we may even enjoy our sin. God warns us of being double-minded. Oh we come Sunday with our Bible and all the catch phrases but Monday through Saturday we live like the world. Pastor Chris preached "The Curse of Double-Mindedness" on 2/24/19 on this very topic. Let's strive to be less like a cow and more like a sheep :-)
Have you ever heard the saying "dog tired"? Last weekend we babysat my niece's puppy. Oh yes, I mean "babysat". We're one of "those" kind of people. You know the ones who attribute human emotions on to our pets. I'm so bad that friends text me and get me clothes about chickens. Yeti is a black lab puppy. ADORABLE. He is all puppy! I mean ALL PUPPY. I have a yellow lab who is about 6 years old. My motto is "tired puppy means happy family". Yeti arrived Saturday. By Saturday night there was not only a tired puppy but a tired human! I still had him until Monday!! Both dogs played hard and we took lots of walks. By Monday, both dogs were pretty tired. The morning walk in the fields was not so brisk. We were weary so everything became a bit more labored and not as enjoyable. My niece came home and picked up the puppy. She texted me to let me know he had slept most of the afternoon and all night long. Weariness. The puppy weekend was tiring but it ended quickly. Sometimes though in our Christian walk we grow weary for many reasons. Sadly, some decide to quit their Christian walk, give up on God, or grow discouraged or bitter. Pastor preached a sermon on 4/7/19 in the morning service which dealt with weariness. The core text was Judges 8:4 "And Gideon came to Jordan, and passed over, he, and the three hundred men that were with him, faint, yet pursuing them." Are you weary? This is a great sermon to find encouragement. If you are in our area, April 14th begins our revival services with Pastor Mike Allison. It runs from Sunday to Friday. It will be a great time of refreshment and powerful preaching.
My house is surrounded by fields and woods. It is a beautiful place. There are a lot of things I love about where I live, mice are NOT one of them. In fact, mice make me scream like a school girl. I realize I can't do much about them in the woods, but I can do something about them in my house. We try not to have clutter and leave food out. I "thought" we were safe until .... My husband had given our youngest boy the chore of combining totes in the garage that were filled with a hodge podge of my garden things and my mom's yard sale "treasures". I come home and am informed that there was a mouse in one of the totes. I about had a need for medical help. Panic! Mice in the garage mean mice in my house!!!! What had happened? I had kept the house picked up. We didn't let food lay around. I had left that one little corner of the garage begin to clutter. Sometimes it was because I was just too lazy, too tired, or too many other things to do. No matter the excuse that one unkempt area turned into the place that satan I mean a mouse had taken up residence. Don't we all get weary? Weary in an evil world. Pastor preached a sermon "Faint Yet Pursuing" 4/7/2019 pm service. He spoke on how God used Gideon. Gideon had been given a job from the Lord, and he was "faint yet pursuing". He left no corner cluttered.
Just last week we had a plowable snow. The snow started early morning and was really coming down hard when I took out Tobias - the dog. I know it is snowing but I was dressed in culottes, sweat shirt, my old barn coat, and muck boots. Let's just say I was a vision but who was gonna' see me? I normally walk Tobias to the fields in front of my house. First wipe out was just a minor one knee to the ground. Mental note - things are slick under the new snow. Survived walking the dog, now on to the chickens. I have 2 small flocks of hens in separate buildings. First flock, all is well. Second flock all was going well; I went in the run and gave them water and food. I guess to understand you need to know that my honey built up the run so I had to take a step up on a small incline to get into the run. I exit, being oh so careful, everything was going really well until ... Took a step and the next thing I know I'm staring up into the sky. On the way down, my body had stopped but I was on uneven ground so my head kept moving. I heard an unpleasant muscle sound. When everything stopped, I laid very still. Tobias, the dog, comes and puts his face in front of mine. Finally, he was going to earn his keep and I was going to have a Lassie moment! Think of me as Timmy's mom. Nope he just looked and left. Well there went that Hallmark moment. I thought I may be living out an episode of Rescue 911. Anyone else remember that show from the 80's? Oh I was a vision there outside the coop just making a roadkill snow angel! After a moment, I knew nothing had been broken, and I've been humbled so many times at least this one didn't leave visible marks! I knew it was slick. I took precautions, but I still ended up on the ground making snow angels, why? Because of something unseen. Pastor Starr preached two sermons on 2/14/2021 'Achan, The Troubler of Israel' and 'The Profile of the Double-Minded Man'. Both sermons dealt with sins that many times go unseen but have disasterous consequences on the Christian and those around them. Let me encourage you on your walk today with the Lord to examine yourself and see if there are things that may cause you to fall.
Our Pastor has begun a series on the family. Families are made up of imperfect people. Sadly we sometimes forget that and we treat each other like Bella? Who is Bella? Do you have a moment? Let's be honest folks. Every family has a Bella, every...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
Decisions, I hate them! "Where do you want to eat" "I don't know, where do you want to eat?" Here's one - "What is for supper?" Sometimes decisions are hard because of poor planning, you may be feeling tired, there are a million other things on...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
Let's review a few key facts. No one and I do mean no one will ever mistake me for an athlete. A kayak oh sure they look fun but when you've never been alone on one ... stories happen. We had gone on our family vacation. My honey had booked us an...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
My niece has a small farm. She and her family went on a short vacation and I stayed at her house and took care of the animals. Let's have a few preliminaries: I like to look at horses but I'm not real keen on messing with them but of course she...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
Honest, I don't make stuff up. Its just my life and I LOVE my life. Now I have never claimed to be the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree but I do have some common sense though the following story may make you doubt that. What I think this world...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
I know it has been a while but I'm the type of person that needs to feel like writing to be able to write. Its like that awful question we all grapple with, "What's for supper?" We are in that season of year that all the commercials of festivities...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
I read a quote recently by Dr. Bob Jones Sr., "You can't keep a bird from flying over your head, but you can keep it from building a nest in your hair." What was he saying? He was saying, I can't control everything that comes into my life, but I...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
Ok I'll admit it that I am sort of a Christmas decoration hoarder. I do have my limits. My mom, who lives with us, does not have a limit. I determined that this year was going to be that year that we would just pitch stuff, and I was ready to...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
Psalm 48:14 "For this our God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death." I am probably the most boring person you will ever meet. I love routine. I still get happy stopping at McD's; it doesn't take much to amuse me....[ abbreviated | read entire ]
I'm at that point in life I can use phrases like, "When I was a little girl..." or "I remember when we could..." Times change and if you watch the news you are acutely aware times are changing. Oh I can sit and stew about the foolishness that...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
