God is blessing our area with rain, lots of rain. We've prayed for rain for several months, even over a year. And it is glorious to see. Thank you Jesus!
The grass is green and growing. The flowers are opening. Rain cannot be replaced by a garden hose no matter how long we keep it on.
I read somewhere that a child remembered being held by Father God.
2 Samuel 23:4 says, "He 'is like the light of the morning at sunrise of a cloudless dawn, the glistening after the rain on the sprouting grass of the earth.’"
If you don't long to be closer to God than you are, ask him for this desire. Nothing this world can offer can compare to friendship with God.
Author Heather Holleman has written some really great books. One of them is called: seated with Christ: living freely in a culture of comparison. (Click here for a link to the book)
The title refers to a single verb in Ephesians 2:6: "And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus."
We're already where we need to be -- no need to seek approval or success or accomplishments. Holleman writes, "We have our own seat, our own calling, and our own tasks. Plus, we're interdependent with one another, seat4ed all together to make a holy dwelling place.
"Scripture, after all, teaches about the we more than the me."
Sometimes we spend a lot of time trying to figure out our purpose on this earth, but in doing this, we often make it a whole lot harder to figure out than it really is. Author Barbara Brown Taylor in A Geography of Faith: An Altar in the World (click here for that book) says she was so worried about this question at one time in her life. She sought and sought God for the answer. Eventually they had a conversation. Here it is: "Then one night when my whole heart was open to hearing from God what I was supposed to do with my life, God said, 'Anything that pleases you.'
"'What?' I said, resorting to words again. 'What kind of answer is that?'
"'Do anything that pleases you,' the voice in my head said again, 'and belong to me.'"
That gets down to loving God and loving people.
"Walk joyfully on the earth and respond to that of God in every human being," writes George Fox.
Engage others. Look others in the eye. Really see everyone you interact with -- the people behind counters; the people you wait in line with; your children, your friends, everyone who walks into your life. And see God. Interact with him always -- especially when loving others and also when you happen to get outside.
This is a rambling kind of post. Thank you for reading. Take time to be in conversation with God. Don't stress. Stress is awful for you most of the time, and really most things aren't that urgent no matter what others tell you. Jesus sees you. He said only one thing matters when confronted by Martha about her sister Mary not helping her with the meal.
Author Amy Boucher Pye in Transforming Love: How friendship with Jesus changes us (her book is found here) writes, "God doesn't love us for what we do." Then she asks the question, "Why do we fuse together our identity with our work? The roots of this practice come from the curse of the fall. Before Adam and Eve disobeyed God, he entrusted them to care for creation. Work at that time wasn't backbreaking but a sheer joy."
This world is meant to be a place where we discover more and more about God and who he is and how much he loves us. The world system, society, the devil, our flesh --all of it likes to mess with that -- like to get us off track and distracted from what is real. Social media is great at getting us distracted. Be aware of what you are feeding your brain. Give it good stuff. Give your soul real nourishment. Jesus told Satan that people don't live on bread alone but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Think on that.