A Heart for Thanksgiving

 Joel 2:23 Be glad, people of Zion,

 rejoice in the Lord your God,

for he has given you the autumn rains
    because he is faithful.
He sends you abundant showers,
    both autumn and spring rains, as before.

 We received a thank you note in the shape of a heart which contained tiny seeds. If we plant the heart seeds in good soil, with full sunlight and plenty of water they will grow into a bouquet of flowers.

 I wonder if this is perhaps how we could offer our own thanksgiving to God for the gift of our lives.

 ‘God, create in me a heart for thanksgiving, filled with seeds of love for you and my neighbors.  Help me to place my heart in good soil, carefully arranging it to receive the full light of your love. Thank you for the early rains you send to help the seeds to take deep root, and for the latter rains, the showers of blessings which bring the seeds to full blossom.  Help me to live my life so that the seeds of faith and love you plant and nurture will spring forth from my heart into a bouquet of praise for your blessings.’

"He Knows Your Name"

 Exodus 33:17 “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”

 Moses asked that God’s Presence would go with God’s people on their journey to the Promised Land. More, Moses asked that if God would not journey with them, then please, God, do not let us even begin this journey.

 Whatever journey you are beginning or about to resume after a pause or detour, make this big ask of God: ‘Let Your Presence be my constant companion.’ The Presence guides, comforts, protects, delivers. Even in our journey through death, the Presence ushers us home.

 Why would God agree to your request? Because God is pleased with you, perhaps for your obedient response to God’s will,  but certainly because of what Jesus did for you on the Cross.

 God knows you by name. Think on that for a moment. You are no stranger to God. There are billions of people God knows, and one of them is you.

 Pause. Listen. Hear. The Presence is calling you by name, inviting you to join the journey through darkness and into light.

 Fear not, friends. He knows your name.

Life's Most Important Question

Exodus 20:2-3 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.”

Are you in Egypt, a slave to some addiction, habit, attitude which is destroying you and your relationship with people you love? How will you ever be set free?

 Turn to the One True God, the God who sets people free.  God’s plan for your life is not to live as a captive to the ‘other gods’ that bind you. God’s plan is always that the captors would  ‘let my people go’ on a pilgrimage to the land of freedom.

 Or are you in the desert, wandering, searching for the pathway to a fulfilling life?  Why would God set you free only to dwell in a desert place? To help you focus on knowing God and God’s perfect plan for your life.

 God’s perfect plan for your life begins with that simple command: serve the LORD God first and only in every aspect of your living and you will find freedom and the pathway to joyful living.

 Are you ready to answer life’s most important question?

Who is your God?

"Bake What You Want to Bake"

 Exodus 16:23 “Tomorrow is to be a day of sabbath rest, a holy sabbath to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until the morning.”

 Today is Saturday.  Moses taught the Israelites that Saturday is a day of rest, set aside for the LORD.

 Sabbath’s purpose is perhaps lost on us. God designed us to work but also to rest. We honor God in our work and in our rest from work when that rest includes time with God.

 Friday was a day to make a double measure of food. Every other day was a day to make just what the Israelites needed for that day (“give us our daily bread,” prayed Jesus, a faithful child of Israel.)

 Has the idea of sabbath rest become impossible for you? Could plan your week so that one day involves less rushing, less stressing over life’s demands? If life has become for you a ‘24/7/365’ grind are truly enjoying life as God intends it to be enjoyed?

 Tomorrow is a day of sabbath rest.  Bake enough today so that tomorrow you can rest in the Lord.