Praising God in these hard times pf my own life is both a challenge a giver of hope . Thanks again Joni for reminding me that praise is always possible!
Category: Uncategorized
50 Years Ago Today
Sounds a lot like my own East coast teenage years and brings me back memories of the 1968 Newport Jazz festival. Only in being found by the Prince of peace did I find my way home.
October 21, 1967. We’d just come off the Summer of Love, during which my buddy Marc and I had futilely searched for a “love in.” I was enamored with the peace symbol, with the phrase “make love, not war,” with the placing of flowers in soldiers’ rifles (preferably by pretty blondes with daisy chains in their hair). I wasn’t sure how to get to this mystical place called Peace, but I desperately wanted to be there. I sensed that the hippie movement hadn’t found it, that they were only chanting about it. LBJ didn’t have the answer, but neither did Ho Chi Minh. Still, the peace movement was something. And something was better than nothing, right?
When I heard about the marches–50,000 at the Pentagon and 100,000 in Washington, DC, with echoes in Europe and the UK–I wanted to ride that wave, instead of floating in the brackish backwater…
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Faithful Witnesses
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Acts 1:8
I often long to peer over God’s shoulders to see what destinations lie ahead on the map of the life He has given me. But this walk of faith usually means that I can not know the roads that He may choose. He only asks us to be faithful witnesses to those we meet along the way.
Watch “JJ Heller – You Keep Your Promises (Official Lyric Video)” on YouTube
Trusting God when only He can see ahead is faith unadorned and uncrowned yet still victorious!
Still Thirsty
Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
John 4:10 NKJV
Jesus stops not at wells for the water but waits by them for thirsty souls. Thank God he waits in the heat of the day even when we least expect!
Never Too Late!
On the verge of celebrating 66 Christmas times I look back with some nostalgia mixed with unspoken regrets. It is too late for some of the career choices I had hoped to make. It is too late for some of the ministry I had once thought I would do. It is too late for more children. It is too late for another talk with Dad, a different way I could have treated my family or even better stewardship of the money that has passed through my hands. But Martha’s encounter with Jesus at the edge of Bethany gives me hope that:
It is never too late for Him to come. It is never too late to listen to His word. His heart has been with me and you every moment of every hour and He has come to share this day with us. Even now; tombs will be opened, grave clothes removed and life renewed at the sound of His voice! No matter the moment, no matter thehour it is never too late for Jesus!
Frost Warning
Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. Luke 10:2 NKJV
With a frost warning coming tonight I rushed out to pull in the last of the peppers. Some were large and ready for harvest. A few others were okay though yet mature. But saddest of all were the blossoms left on the plants when I pulled them and shook the soil from their roots. The frost was here and their beauty and promise were never to be fulfilled.
God tells me stories in the garden. Some stories give me comfort, some direction but frost is like a heavenly alarm clock. The raw jangling of the cold, the grey of clouds and the whistle of North winds shake my world up. There is a frost warning coming for each of us. The time for promises unkept is past. My worn out excuses for immaturity sound hollow in my ears. God’s plan, His will and Kingdom are all that really matter. Don’t just send laborers out into your harvest Lord. Send me! 
