Friday, 27 May 2016

Savoring His Presence

Watching my kids grow up was a wonderful experience… I recall one afternoon giving my baby girl Jeanna, six jellybeans and telling her she could not have anymore after she was finished eating them.

After practically inhaling the first five, Jeanna lingered over the final one. She sucked on it, took it out of her mouth, bit gnawed the outer shell. Knowing that this was her last jellybean, she took a full thirty minutes to eat the treat completely.

I watched my little girl with amusement as she was learning the value of savoring…enjoying the taste and texture and learning to draw out every bit of flavor from the jellybeans.

Now the meat…,

God wants us to savor His presence. He allows us to gain intimate and satisfying knowledge of Him. And when we meditate on His  Word, we will draw out deeper understanding of who He is. As we taste His goodness and love, He will reveal the distinct flavor of His sovereignty, holiness and faithfulness. Surely our Father must look on with enjoyment as we learn how to enjoy and savor Him.

Taste and see that the Lord is good:blessed is the one who take refuge in him. Psalms 34:8

Taken from Baptist Banner dated May 22,2016   


Miracles for The Mistaken

I’m always struck by this passage. Joshua gives a command to the heavenly bodies, and God rearranges the law of physics so that they obey him. It’s one of the greatest miracles in all Scripture. In its scientific magnitude, it is an even greater miracle than the parting of the Red sea.

But that isn’t the main reason. I’m so taken by what happened here. I’m struck by the context. Joshua just blew it. The Gibeonites, posing a distant travelers, deceive Joshua and the other leaders into making a prohibited treaty with them. Joshua was clearly negligent for failing to inquire of the Lord before ratifying the treaty. Now, here in chapter 10, he’s dealing with the aftermath of his mistake. The Gibeonites are in trouble; Joshua and all Israel are called upon to save them.

God could have washed His hands of the entire affair. He  could have said, “You got yourself into this mess; you get yourselfout of it. Don’t look at me to help you defend these wicked Gibeonites.”

But He doesn’t do anything of that sort. God is a God of people who makes mistakes, people who blew it, people who mess up.

I don’t like making mistakes, when I do, God gently reminds me that the work of God isn’t about me and how perfect I am; rather, it is about the God who shows up despite our failings.
This can be found in Joshua chapters 9 and 10

 Taken from Baptist Banner dated November 8,2015










A Perfect Person

A man and his girlfriend were married, it was a large celebration. All their friends and family came to see the lovely ceremony. The bride was gorgeous in her white wedding gown and the groom was very dashing in his black suit. Everyone could tell that the love had for each other was true.

A few months later, the wife comes the husband with a proposal:
 “I read in the magazine, a while ago, about how we can strengthen our marriage.” She offered.
“Each of us will write a list of the things that we find a bit annoying with the other person. Then, we can talk about how we can fix them together and make our lives happier together.”

The husband agreed, so each of them went to separate rooms in the house and thought of the things that annoyed them about the other . They thought about this question for the rest of the day and wrote down what they come up with.

The next morning, at the breakfast table, they decided that they would go over their list.

 “I’ll start,” offered the wife.

 She took out her list. It had many items on it enough to fill three pages, in fact. As she started reading the list of the little annoyances she noticed that tears were starting to appear in her husband’s eyes. 
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing” the husband replied,
“Keep reading your lists.”

The wife continued to read until she had read all three pages to her husband. She neatly placed her list on the table and folded her hands over on top of it.
“Now, you read your list and then we’ll talk about the things on both our lists.” She said happily.

Quietly the husband stated, “I don’t have anything on my list. I think that you are perfect the way that you are. I don’t want to change you to change anything for me. You are lovely and wonderful and I wouldn’t want to try and change anything about you.”
The wife , touched by his honesty and the depth of his love for her and hi acceptance for her, turned her head and wept.

-----Some true messages from this--------
There are enough times when we are dis appointed, depressed and annoyed. We don’t really have to go looking for them. That is the full beauty, light and promise. Why waste time in this world looking for the bad, disappointing or annoying things when we can look around us ,and see the wondrous things before us? I believe that WE ARE HAPPIST WHEN WE SEE AND PRAISE THE GOOD AND TRY OUR BEST TO FORGET THE BAD.
Always remember:
  Nobody’s PERFECT but we can find PERFECTNESS in them to change the way we see them.

This article was taken from our Baptist Banner dated Dec. 27,2015