Are You Waiting?

 
 
 
 Will you spend time alone with Jesus
 Is His will what you’re looking for
 Is there a place He can go to meet with you
 To come in and then close the door?
  
 Is your heart like a freshly turned garden
 That is ready and prepared for seed
 A place where His word can take root
 And His plan is your deepest need?
  
 Then listen you’ll hear HIs footsteps
 It’s the Master now coming our way
 And He’s asking to sit here with you
 If you’re waiting for Him today-


  
  
  
 Are You Waiting?  by Peter Caligiuri 
Copyright 2021 All rights reserved

Sabbath Gift of Grace


The Sabbath is a Gift of Grace

It’s not a law we must obey
 Or just some answer on a test
 But it began at the creation
 That God made a day for rest
  
 Just as the sun was going down
 And as His children lay to sleep
 He gently covered them with night
 And then bowed low so they could meet
  
 And in the morning walk the path
 And tell them how His hand had traced
 The course of daybreak and the stars
 Then gave a Sabbath gift of grace 

The Sabbath is a Gift of Grace by Peter Caligiuri
Copyright 2021 all rights reserved

So God blessed the seventh day and made it Holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation. Genesis 2:3 ESV

Where is Our Hope?

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by          
Excerpt from Who Has Seen the Wind? by Christina Rossetti

I’m not much for remembering long pages of flowing verse from Dylan Thomas or T.S. Elliott, but what stays with me are tiny snippets of poetry that take quiet walks with me when I am alone. This week as I was struggling though some personal issues I remembered Christina Rossetti’s line, “But when the trees bow down their heads” and God gently quieted by heart. I had been making a fuss about things I could not understand like a crying child who refuses to take his afternoon nap. But like the perfect Father that He is, God comforted me with the reminder that faith is the way He chooses for everyone to walk with Him.

Sure, Moses saw the burning bush and Peter got to see Jesus transformed on the mountain. But for the vast majority of us, our faith is built on somewhat less spectacular experiences. In fact Peter himself points out that our hope and joy is based on a Jesus who we have never seen.

 And though you have never seen him, yet I know that you love him. At present you trust him without being able to see him, and even now he brings you a joy that words cannot express and which has in it a hint of the glories of Heaven; 1 Peter 1:8 Phillips Version

Some of you are probably struggling with loneliness, sickness or heartache, wishing that Jesus would just show up and fix things. It would be great to see God swing into action like Spiderman, just as our enemies close in, but He has a better way! His solution does not depend on anything we can see, but on the unseen love of Jesus Christ. We believe not because we have seen, but because we have experienced God’s gift of joy by means of a faith that gives with us, “A hint of heaven” and God’s Spirit whispers, “That hint is more than enough! “