Vote

Our one-word prompt today from the #five minute Friday group of writers is: Vote

Living on the other side of the Atlantic from my American brothers & sisters, it can be easy to be smug and judgmental because we are not in an election year here. And yet there is still so much we can vote for, we can still lobby parliament for freedom of speech, for human rights, for life, for care, for the liberty of the gospel.

So that makes me think that really we should be casting our vote daily in how we live our lives and not just every big term of office. In our every day, where do we cast our vote when we walk past the homeless man in the shop doorway, where do we cast our vote when we do nothing about the rise and rise of secularism, where do we cast our vote when we don’t stand up for what we believe in the staff room at work?

Hundreds of small daily choices, myriads of ways we choose to live, choose one thing over another, many may seem inconsequential, but in the long run they determine the way we live.

“He has told you, O man, what is good;

and what does the LORD require of you

but to do justice, and

to love kindness, and

to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8

So may we vote daily, may we live daily, may we choose daily to walk in the way of the Lord.

Monday Musings – Seasons

I can’t believe where the time and the seasons have gone this year, dark mornings mean that we have already moved the clocks back one hour! Wow!

Perhaps it is because of the Covid 19 Lockdowns & Restrictions that time has passed without it being marked by the usual meetings, arrangements, holidays, trips, visits , birthday occasions etc., yet seasons still come and still go whether we are prepared or aware of them or not.

But now that we are here, last week in October, just about to enter our darkest months I am brought up short and think ok, winter just about upon us – what now? How do I prepare for this?

There are things I do ofcourse about the house and garden, I prepare, I get ready, I take action. I put away light summer clothes, I pull out the big warm jumpers and jackets, I get in a supply of logs, I get the candles out, I prepare hearty stews and soups. In the garden/poly tunnel I dig up the last of the vegetables, I turn over the ground, but I don’t just prepare it to lie dormant, I actually feed it with organic matter so that it is quietly, silently being prepared for fruitfulness next year.

So what am I going to do spiritually to feed my soul, how am I preparing for this dark, dormant season so that I am ready and prepared for the next season of fruitfulness?

I have listened to a couple of podcasts recently where the speakers have spoken of seasonal goals & plans, I have never really done this, but on mulling these things over I see the benefits so that I don’t just drift along, stagnate, lose my joy or focus. I don’t yet have written out goals or plans, but I am thinking about it.

The questions I am asking to formulate those goals are:

• What am I going to study in the Bible – what book do I want to get into, read through, write out?
• How am I going to cultivate the practice of praise?
• What books am I going to read – not just novels, but doctrinal, teaching, spiritual, devotional books – should I do research and compile a list?
• What about church life – what sphere of service should I be growing?
• What about family life & marriage – how am I going to grow the fruits of the Spirit in family relationships?

I don’t yet have an answer to those questions and it may be enough just to pose them, but I would like to take them further and think of at least one thing for each question.

What about you? Not just how are you going to survive the winter, but how are you going to thrive?

Disappoint

Joining today with the #Five Minute Friday group of writers to write on a one word prompt for 5 minutes. Today’s prompt: Disappoint

Disappointment is linked to our expectations. We expect something to happen and are then disappointed when it doesn’t. We expect people to act in a certain way and are disappointed when they don’t.

We get disappointed when plans, people, places don’t match up to our expections.

There was a time in my life when I was also disappointed with God, He too wasn’t meeting my expectations, He wasn’t giving me what I wanted, asked for, expected and certainly not in my time-scale. I went through quite a few years of ‘disappointment with God’. It wasn’t something I could discuss with others as they all seemed perfectly happy with their God, walking in trust in faith. But I was hurting, I was disappointed and I was confused.

Until like the Psalmist I came to a place of surrender:

Then I realized that my heart was bitter,

and I was all torn up inside.

I was so foolish and ignorant—

I must have seemed like a senseless animal to you.

Yet I still belong to you;

you hold my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel,

leading me to a glorious destiny.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

I desire you more than anything on earth.

My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak,

but God remains the strength of my heart;

He is mine forever.

Psalm 73:21-26

Mid-week Meditations

For our mid-week meditations this week, I am sharing a post I wrote for our church’s daily devotions, looking at how we are to love the Lord .

Heart; Soul; Mind,

When Jesus was asked which was the greatest commandment, He said:

Jesus declared, “ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ [Matthew 22:37]

In other words, we are to love God entirely, with our whole beings.  Any following after God, any obedience, any act of being a disciple should stem from our love for God.  And how are we to love?

HEART = inward self where feelings & emotions occur

To love the Lord with our hearts means that He has our devotion, our hearts are given over to Him. Love for God is our leading affection, He is our highest affection, our hearts are open and sensitive to Him, He has our heart and we respond to Him in love.

SOUL = the entire inner person.

This is our beings, our wills.  This is where we choose to love and obey, for sometimes it is a choice, whose voice are we going to follow today.  Perhaps we are not ‘feeling it’, perhaps our emotional love for God has gone cold, but we can choose to love, choose where we place our devotion, choose to follow, choose to obey.

MIND – The inward part of us where thinking occurs.

Our understanding, our intellect, to know Him is to love Him. We are not just to love, tossed about by our every feeling and emotion, but we are to love God with our minds, with our intellect, coming to know and understand who He is and what He has done for us.  Our response then is to bow, love and worship.

So how are we to love God today? Entirely.

HEART. SOUL. MIND

Hold

Joining with the #Five Minute Friday group of writers to write on a one word prompt. Today’s prompt is :- Hold

I have two ‘young adult ‘ children and one of the hardest things about that has been letting them go. It is hard when they no longer live under your roof and so you don’t see them every day, you don’t see what they are doing, or how they are doing. It is a worry.

So one thing I have been trying to practice is placing them into the ‘care of God’. I do that by reminding myself that God loves them even more than I do and I visualise actually handing them over to God, actually placing them in His care.

I am assured then that God has a hold of them and keeps them in that hold. I can trust them to Him and I can hold on to that during anxious times.

Mid-week Meditations

For our mid-week meditations this week, I am sharing a post I wrote for our church’s daily devotions, asking the question How long O Lord?

How long?  That is what we are saying just now, isn’t it?  How long will this virus rum amok in our land?  How long will our lives suffer restrictions?  How long is all this going to last?  How Long? How Long, Lord?

The Psalmist also asked those sorts of questions in Psalm 13

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

and day after day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

How long will our worries and concerns plague us?  How long will we wrestle with these things?  How long, Lord?  What are You doing Lord?  Why are You not acting on our behalf Lord?

However, like the Psalmist, we too need to come to the place of acceptance and surrender and trust that God is God, He is on the throne, He is in control and His how longs are different from ours and He wants us to place our hand in trust in His.

Then as we come to that place of trust we can then affirm with the Psalmist when He closed this Psalm with these words:

But I trust in your unfailing love;

my heart rejoices in your salvation.

I will sing the Lord’s praise,

for He has been good to me.

When we have peace in the Storm it means that we can trust in God’s unfailing love, that we can rejoice in His salvation and we can sing the Lord’s praise because we know and trust that He is good to us.

How long?  Maybe that depends on how long it takes us to come to that place of trust?