What if you lost a day, a month, a year, or more?

 

Simple answer? You start where you are now and start over ... or resume where you left off.

 

Life can be tricky. Life is always a challenge if you fully embrace it and if you lean fully into it. Here are some meditations on challenging times.

 

 

 

You may be moving into some new, unknown, precarious, and frightening territory in your life. You are proceeding with caution and trepidation. It is a place where you must go, but you do not know the terrain or the hidden agendas of these new days ... All you know is Who is with you and leading you ...

... and that is enough.

" And God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, 'Jacob, Jacob.' And he said,'Here I am.' Then he said, 'I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph's hand shall close your eyes.'"

"Then Jacob set out from Beersheba. The sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons that Pharaoh had sent to carry him." - Genesis 46:2-5 (ESV)

It was all the assurance that Jacob needed to set out and follow. 

 

It is all we need.

 

God bless you in your NEW journey ... for each day is a NEW JOURNEY!

 

 

A few years ago, I was preparing a message on judgment when I was struck with a surprise - It was a message of hope.

 

--- Even when there are no signs of life in the tree, the Gardener gives another year --- and lovingly tends the tree to eke out the life that no one else sees but He still believes may be there.

 

In a message of judgment and destruction, imagine this main message is: God still believes in you.

You might consider returning the favor!

 

We have rights and prerogatives that we do not exercise. We are free to do so, but we are also free to let them go because our loyalty, our values, our marching orders, indeed, our very purpose for existence is focused on something higher and better than our comforts.

 

We set aside our preferences for the good of others because that good is in the heart of the One to whom we have pledged our total loyalty --- to love whom He loves and to care about the desires of His heart until they become the desires of our hearts as well.

 

" If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more?"

 

"Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ." - 1 Corinthians 9:12 (ESV)

 

 

In times of decline, we seek the Divine Incline.
Perceived or received, something declines for us,
And lofty edifices of our pride sink low.
Yet we ...
The "we" that is truly "us ..."
Shall not decline His inclination toward restoration.
Poor and needy
When greedy fires are consuming the underbrush of our lives,
From hesitation to preservation, His salvation
Rescues our souls.
From sadness to gladness we are lifted,
By grace, gifted ...
For God is good! In this we have stood!
God is forgiving! Thus, our living!
God is abounding in covenant love!
Chesed!
Give ear, Oh Lord.
Give Your full attention and intervention
To our plea for grace!
"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound!"
It is the day of trouble ...
For me ...
For many ...
We stand upon the precipice.
We cry for mercy.
Oh LORD, answer, please.

"Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me,
for I am poor and needy.
Preserve my life, for I am godly;
save your servant, who trusts in you—you are my God.
Be gracious to me, O Lord,
for to you do I cry all the day.
Gladden the soul of your servant,
for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.
Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer;
listen to my plea for grace.
In the day of my trouble I call upon you,
for you answer me." - Psalm 86:1-7 (ESV)

 

 

We flinch against a new norm that normalizes the tendency to exchange value for worthless pursuits. Thus is the description of idolatry. On one hand is a God who is a fount of fresh, cool water and, on the other, leaking cisterns.

 

And we gravitate toward the leaky novelties.

" Be appalled, O heavens, at this;

be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the LORD,

for my people have committed two evils:

they have forsaken me,

the fountain of living waters,

and hewed out cisterns for themselves,

broken cisterns that can hold no water." - Jeremiah 2:12-13 (ESV)

 

 

Consider reordering your priorities so that you measure your success more on the basis of how you help others with your success that on how you achieve your own goals.