Joy

Silent Night – Mary’s Treasure

/ pastorpete51 / 4 Comments

Luke 2:19-20 But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Of all the songs that I relate to Christmas I find that Silent Night is the one that brings me closest to that scene with Mary, Joseph and the Shepherds gathering in amazement and awe around the child sent from God, lying in a manger. In that hush (Though I am skeptical about the line “No crying He makes) there is the true worship that God intended when He sent the Good News of great joy. I pray you will have a wonderful Christmas season sharing that joy with neighbors, friends and family. We now have the job the angels have so today consider going out and looking for some shepherds who are out in the fields and invite them to come and worship Christ the new born king! I hope you will like my rendering of this song written 200 years ago in German by Joseph Mohr with music from Franz Gruber. Its simple beauty still stirs my heart every time I sing. Have a blessed week-end everybody!

Counting the Joy

/ pastorpete51 / Leave a comment

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
James 1:2 ESV

We had gotten used to Disney being closed and resigned to the fact that even beaches were shut down. That was soon followed by restaurants, my barber shop and finally even our church. But the reality of this verse didn’t kick in for me till yesterday when I discovered that there were no cases of any kind of water at Publix and the clerk didn’t know when it would come in.

Like the surprise of a sunrise streaking across the horizon I suddenly realized that nothing was in my control. It has become popular to say that we are all in this together. But our togetherness is kind of like being in the same waiting room each awaiting our individual surgery. One by one God is operating on our hearts through new and different trials. The good news is that He is not only a Good Shepherd -He is also a great surgeon! We can count the procedure we are facing as joy because we know that in the recovery room He will tell us that the operation was a success!

 

A Cheerful Heart

/ pastorpete51 / Leave a comment

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength.   Proverbs 17:22 NLT

I felt frustrated by the small number of people that were coming to our church service at the nursing home. It seemed despite our best efforts; fewer were coming each week and we simply rushed in and did our duty and went home without accomplishing anything.

God’s medicine for my increasingly glum attitude arrived one day at the end of the meeting. “God bless you. How are you today? Thanks for coming.” I said as I shook each person’s hands. About halfway through I came to one lady and she slipped something into my hand. When I turned my hand over and opened up my palm I discovered two shiny quarters there, looking up at me.

“No I can’t take this’” I protested.

bank black and white business cash

Photo by George Becker on Pexels.com

She just smiled and said with a wink, “You keep those; there are lots more where they came from!”

I just shook my head and laughed as the dark clouds lifted from my heart. She taught me that day that real cheerfulness is based on just simply trusting that God is in charge. He is Heaven’s pharmacist and has given to each of us a prescription that must be refilled every day!