Trusting...

It’s been a rocky summer, but God is good!!! In the midst of several hard situations, He has taken me to a couple of new prayer labyrinths and poured out His Peace and comfort in the process. Over and over again, He reminds me to trust Him in these days, and as always, to hand over the moments to Him and to always lift the people and situations up to Him in prayer…and over it all, Trust.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Never rely on what you think you know. Remember the Lord in everything you do, and He will show you the right way.

Proverbs 3:5 & 6

What does that look like in “real” life? We seem to jump to the end, where He is in charge of our “path”, our life, but look where it begins…Trust. What does trust look like in our day-to-day, how does it play out, especially when things seem tough to get thru? To me, one way to check my path against the Lord’s is to start with these questions of looking at my “trust”:

~   Am I trusting, or consistently questioning the Lord?

~  Are the steps of my day peace-filled?

~  Am I seeking God, or a momentary, personal perspective on things?

God does walk us thru some hard times. He does allow pain to be one of our teachers along with other experiences that we would not choose. Our response, our Guide thru these times is to go to the beginning and Trust. Trust God with it all. Look for Him in every moment of every experience and grow along the journey of the path HE has created…allowed to be.

Trust also means patience, which is always hard for me! I do love the Amplified Version of this verse on the fruits of the Spirit…

 But the fruit of the Spirit [the result of His presence within us] is love [unselfish concern for others], joy, [inner] peace, patience [not the ability to wait, but how we act while waiting], kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22 & 23 ~ Amplified Version

Our path is carved out in life thru many things. We have the blessing of planting our path with our LOVE of the Lord ~ the JOY of serving others, His love poured out in our every choice, our words being ones of His PEACE poured out in the world, PATIENCE to wait on Him, the KINDNESS and GOODNESS of the Lord’s ways covering every thought and deed and FAITHFULNESS to trust in all things. Our GENTLENESS & SELF-CONTROL, our faith is anchored in Trust.

If you didn’t notice here, out of the nine fruits of the Spirit, only three are expanded on in this translation…and patience is a whole sentence itself! NOT the act of patience, but our behaviour while waiting. “…how we act while waiting” AND all the other fruits have tangible manifestations, but God led these translators to expand on our behaviour regarding patience with a whole sentence in a sentence! Think I need to trust Him on that, too!

When we are wavering, questioning, scared…all of which is normal…, we need to turn that into Trust. Because where we see a rocky path, full of boulders, God sees pebbles, a few leaves that we need to learn to sweep away because they obscure the path He has laid out…the path of Trust.

 

Trust is the key, the perspective changer. Trust is what allows us to see from God’s point of view. Trust brings Peace to what seems a broken, rocky path.

Words...

Thinking on “words” today. They comprise all that we are, all we communicate, all we think ~ words. And then there is God’s Word, Jesus His Son, THE Word.

Sermons are given, devotions written with words, about The Word. Often the focus will be on just one word in a passage; defined, categorized and pulled out to mean so much more than our original understanding! And that is what is lost in general, I think. Each word IS important…EACH word is more than we understand and grasp in our daily lives.

God’s Word is most definitely most important, but ours are, too. The intent of our words does not lessen their weight on others unless they are defined, or explained. Because we do not live in a vacuum, our words wield power we often do not realize . “Our” intent may be good, but it is just that, ours…it may very well not be what another needs at all.

I’ve found journaling to an amazing teacher in my life. Journaling puts our thoughts before us and initiates conversation with God…one where we listen as HE reveals and interprets what we already think we know. That’s the beauty, the challenge of journaling ~ the “knowing” that we do not sit alone. God is in every pen stoke, guiding and revealing Himself to us, at our pace as we lay our thoughts/our words before Him. So often our thoughts, our impressions are only the opening paragraph to a much deeper understanding of God’s work in our life. The journal pages open and expand our vision and understanding one letter at a time

He gave us this very unique way of processing life thru words. It is one way that God himself communicates Life to us. So, as we live our lives in community with others, our thoughts and our speech should be something we are aware of ~ Life giving to others, as Christ has given to us.

Words kill, words give Life;

They’re either poison or fruit,

You choose.

Proverbs 18:21

Dew Filled

On my walk the other day, God gave me such a beautiful picture of His Grace. It was a still morning, the clouds were low, not even a sparrow chirp could be heard. There was a blanket of dew over everything, like it had been quietly pulled over us as we slept. On the street where I was walking, it was a little different. The trees that had their branches stretched over the road had caught all the dew, so there were dry patches along the way and the rest of the road was damp from the dew. Oh, the gift of another “life” picture from God.

In that moment, God reminded me that we are His trees ~ His people He plants here to grow and serve each other. And oh how much better, how much more beautiful our days are when we stretch out our branches, our souls, to receive His Strength and Grace that He reigns over us like the morning dew. 

This world is His creation. His mercies are new every morning. His love lays out like a blanket over each of our days. Those things are not in question, as we see Him pour out His Grace over His children everyday. Our choice however, our question for ourselves everyday should be, “Where are our branches?”

Often times I think we get caught up in life and focus on the dry patches in the road not realizing their true significance. We forget that God allows us to choose to live with our heart and soul stretched out, open and ready to receive His Grace ⇐ actively looking for Him in each moment…..or not.

The Truth I saw on my walk was plain ~ When we live closed in, with our own plans, we allow His Grace to dampen an empty road.

Let my teaching fall on you like raindrops; let what I say collect like the dew, Like rain sprinkling the grass, like showers on the green plants.

Deuteronomy 32:2  ~ The Voice