#Agnosticism

Some years ago my husband invited a friend of ours to come for dinner. This friend, we will call Bill, was going through a divorce and rarely had home cooked meals. Bill identified himself as an agnostic. He was leaning toward Hinduism and had studied that religion a bit. He knew where we stood for we had discussed the claims of Christianity a few times over the years.

He called Christianity a 'bloody religion' and that notion had turned him off to the Gospel. Now, he was looking into the Vedas for truth. During our conversation that evening he brought up the verse in Matthew 5:48 which states that we are to be perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect and correctly pointed out the fact that we were not perfect. He had seen the imperfections in us over the years and knew we were not perfect. The conversation ended there, because we had no answer to that point.

I was caught up short, and it brought to my attention my need to study what Jesus meant in that statement. Words are so important because of the meaning of each one. I looked up 'perfect' and found that in that verse, it meant -  complete or whole and Jesus was pointing out our condition of brokenness without Him and in Him, we are complete or whole. In God's sight, which it the most important sight, we are perfect when we are in Jesus.  I had been understanding the word just like Bill had been and had no help for him at that time, but his statement and my consternation with myself caused me to study and prepared me to be able to give an answer in the future. I can now say with confidence, I am perfect.

#Mother'sDayGift

In my book "The Treasure is the Trip" I tell the story of my confrontation with God one night. I was a busy 27 year old mother of four children with an unidentifiable need in my life. The disturbance I felt had been going on for three years and nothing would make it go away. If someone had given me that book, I would have been able to identify my problem and taken care of it sooner.

There are many young women sensing what I did, I am sure. The lack of peace in one's heart can lead one to search for it in many ways, some of which are detrimental. One may look to drugs or alcohol or buying stuff or another man  to satisfy that longing. I am thankful that I didn't have the means or the way to go those routs.

The idea came to me just a few minutes ago, that "The Treasure is the Trip" would make a wonderful Mother's Day gift. It is not fattening. It is not expensive. It doesn't take any maintenance, like watering or fertilizing. It will not wilt and it might do some good, some eternal good.

Something to consider.

#MagicInTheDirt

Outside my bedroom window is the rusty, iron-bared obelisk which I brought from Wisconsin when we moved. I don't know it's age, but I purchased it in an antique shop. It has a hinged door on one side which enables items to be placed inside. I think it is rusted shut. I planted a clematis vine last year right at the bottom of one side and it grew and blossomed with beautiful purple flowers all twined in and through the iron bars and this year it is at it again. The little tendrils reach out and hang onto anything. Around the corner of my room are two mounds of blue creeping phlox and at the corner of the garage is a big growth of day lilies which I have to divide soon.   The house across the street has tulips and daffodils showing off their colors. Aren't flowers wonderful? There is such a great variety and it just goes to show us how creative God is. He is into beauty and smells and color and design and taste. Lets not forget rosemary and parsley and chives. All His creation is given to us to enjoy and care for.

We are not guaranteed tomorrow, what we have is now. The person who made the statement, 'stop and smell the flowers', was telling us to be more into now and take little moments to relish life around us. When you do stop and smell the flowers, you can appreciate God's mind and just be thankful that you are here now.

#StoryTelling

Stories really get to me. The other day a friend handed me a short story he had written. It was only two type-written pages long about children in Appalachia and as I read it, tears welled up in my eyes making it almost impossible to continue reading. It touched my heart and proves that the telling of stories can get points across and move people.

Jesus knew this and was a superb story-teller and most were short and to the point. He told of a farmer who was busy planting seeds. Back in those days farmers wore cross-over bags to carry the seed and would grab a hand full and scatter them. The story tells of four kinds of ground on which the seed fell and each kind has a different result. The path had been walked on and was hard, packed dirt and nothing could penetrate. The rocky places had very little soil and tho the seed came up, there wasn't enough nourishment for it to survive. The weedy areas did have enough nourishment, but the weeds prevented the sun from reaching and gradually chocked out the new growth. Then, there was good soil, soil that had been cultivated. The rocks and weeds had been removed and the soil broken up by the plow. This soil produced a crop.

The point was made. The dirt, which if you recall, we were made of dirt, is the mind. The seed is the Word of God. The rocks are fears and doubts. The weeds are worldly pleasures. The path made by people walking on the soil shows the hardness that is done when people misuse you, walk on you.  Each of us is represented by the four different soils. Can you recognize which one is you? One last point - it isn't hopeless, where you find yourself. Soil can be cultivated - plowed up, rocks removed, weeds pulled and now made ready to receive the word. If we can just recognize the problem in our lives and do the preparation, the Word will be productive. Its guaranteed. 

"God's word will not return to Him void. It shall accomplish that which I please. It shall prosper in the thing I sent it to do". Isaiah 55:11

#TheseBootsWereMadeForWalking

Every time a catalog arrives in the mail, I pour over the shoe pages. I really don't need any shoes, I just love shoes. My husband managed a shoe store and got me hooked on shoes. I didn't need much encouragement. I love baskets and handbags and bracelets and elephants. Its funny how we use the word 'love'. Our English language is rather limited with regards to the word 'love' and we use it so casually. Alexander The Great who was born about 350 years before Jesus saw the need for a language so specific that his generals would understand exactly what he meant when giving orders, that he created Koine Greek . This language had five words for love and when someone said they loved you they could use more than one word to be specific and you would understand if they considered you a friend or a lover.

We had Wednesday night prayer meetings at our church and those attending would be on their knees praying. I remember one gentleman saying in his prayer, "I love you Lord." and it just struck me how odd it was to say that to God. After all, God must know that and it seemed superfluous to me. Being so practical, I considered it wasting words, but I couldn't get it out of my mind. The thought came that it must have sounded good to God, since I enjoy hearing someone say that to me and He must feel that way, also. God has feelings. He is not just a power, He is a being. He loves and desires that we love Him, so saying 'I love you' to God is a good thing. In fact, when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment of all the commandments was, He replied, "To love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind." Saying it is one thing and meaning it is quite another. Guys say that to gals all the time, when they mean I desire you and want you to make me happy and she might think a bit different, like he cares for me and wants to make me happy.

Jesus clarified the matter when He expounded on the thought by saying, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." We can say 'I love you, Lord' but if we really mean it, we will follow through and do it. If we really love Him we will want to make Him happy and we will make every effort to discover His priorities and make them our priorities. This is true love and not the kind that loves shoes.

#Discipline

My husband worked as a salesman in a shoe store when we were first married and I had to keep him in a fresh starched dress shirt every day and that meant ironing. It was in the fifty's before no-iron cotton was in existence. When our daughter was about a year old, she was curious about everything and watching her mama move this silver thing across her dad's shirts made her wonder what on earth was going on. She kept wanting to touch the hot iron and I kept saying 'no' and moving her hand away from danger. Finally, after nothing would discourage her, I just let her touch the iron. She then understood why I kept saying no as she jerked her nicely reddened finger away with a cry.

I could have taken her away and spanked her or put her in her crib and closed the door, but she would not have learned the 'why' of my insistence that she not touch the iron. She got an education that day and we are sometimes so determined to have our way that our Heavenly Father God will let us have our way to educate us. God is not in the punishment business. His Son, Jesus, took all the punishment for all the disobedience of all humans. We can expect discipline from His good hand when we are disobedient and we can expect the natural consequences from our actions and when we get hurt, we can either blame God or we can feel sorry for ourselves or we can learn the lesson and change our behavior. Discipline can be unpleasant, even hurt, but it can and should yield positive results in the life of the child of God. After all, your Father God promises to work all things together for good in the lives of His children and He has a very good reason for disciplining us for he wants to develop us into someone who resembles our big brother.

A thought - if you have not felt God's heavy hand of discipline, then, perhaps you should question if you are His child. Discipline goes with the territory.

#Work

Work is a four letter word and sometimes we think of it as a four letter word. Yet, work is good for us. In the Genesis account after man and woman chose to disobey God, God had something to say and it ended up as curses. He cursed the serpent because of his deceiving the first humans by subjecting this reptile to slithering on its belly all the days of its life. He cursed the ground from which food would grow by consigning thorns and thistles to be prevalent. He then foretold that woman would suffer much pain in childbirth and that man would be working so hard to feed himself and his family that he would eat his bread with sweat on his brow. So, we come to the conclusion that work is the curse, but it isn't. Work is the solution to the curse.

I have worked most of my life and some of it was labor. I have cleaned, regularly, a house that held a family of seven and cooked, regularly, for those seven. I have scrubbed and swept and washed and ironed and even canned and knitted and sewed for my family. Sometimes I thought God had said those words in Genesis out of revenge, to get even for what Adam and Eve did, but, I have come to appreciate work. It is a good thing for humans to be busy and active and productive and creative and moving. It saves us from boredom and lethargy and helps keep us healthy. I am very thankful for my job and at the age of 82 when many think it is the time to be retired, I am working and really grateful for someone wanting my skills and gifts and are willing to pay me for these. I plan to die with my 'boots' on.

#Impossible

There are some things that seem impossible and there are some things that just are impossible. You may want to stop time because you are enjoying the moment so much. You can capture the moment in a picture, but you cannot capture time. It just keeps moving on. There is no possibility of moving time forward any degree or making it go faster or stopping it. It is an impossibility.

In Hebrews 11, the writer tells us 'that without faith it is impossible to please God'. It cannot be done.  There is no chance in the world of being acceptable to God. The writer goes on to help us understand the issue. He states that first and foremost an individual must believe or have faith that God exists. If one believes that God exists, that in itself must be satisfying to God, but even demons believe that God exists and these entities are in full rebellion against Him and cannot be pleasing to Him.

Faith is a currency, a medium of exchange that God has chosen to be valid in His economy. We use the dollar bill and exchange it for something. We place our currency into the hand of the cashier and in return we get our candy bar. So, it is in the spiritual realm. We place our faith into the hand of God in order to proceed in this transaction and we receive assurance back. That is only the beginning for just as you have a candy bar for eating, you have assurance for seeking Him personally and He is satisfied with you at that point and rewards you by revealing more and more of Himself to you.

There will always be tiny grains of doubt waiting to spring forth in our minds, but there is an answer to that. The story told in Mark 9 of the father who asked Jesus to help his son and when told all things were possible to him who believes, stated back, "I do believe; help my unbelief." encourages us. When we recognize a doubt, a weed in our flower garden, we don't ignore it because it will multiply and our flower garden will become a weed garden. Doubts left to grow bloom into - 'God lied'. A doubt is an opportunity to use the currency of faith and to say to God, "I believe; help my unbelief."

#Symptoms

Your temperature registers 101 degrees and you feel puny and your first thought is to take an aspirin or something to lower your temp. It doesn't register with you that there may be something going on inside your body that is causing the rise in your temperature. It could be something serious, but all you are concerned with is lowering the symptom. Many times we don't think past the symptoms and conclude that the symptom is the problem. The body was created with the marvelous ability to heal itself and the white blood cells become an army to fight bacteria that has invaded their territory. The equipment that manufactures white blood cells goes into mass production when an enemy is detected and it heats up, hence a fever. We just may interfere if we lower the temperature of the equipment and slow the manufacturing process down. We just may create a bigger problem.

Our law makers are looking at a symptom and calling it a problem. They have seen mass shootings and decided that guns are the problem. A gun resting on a counter isn't capable of doing anything. Removing guns is their solution, but people who want to kill will find other ways to do it. Look at London and how killings with knives has skyrocketed. Will anyone come up with an antibiotic to eliminate the problem? Is there anyone with wisdom in the House? Will crying children rule? Are we going to continue treating the symptom and just making the problem get worse?

#NaturalandSupernatural

Most every day at CSCo, I would remind our teams that their job was to make that office or home look better than when they arrived, to make it look like no one had ever been there messing up. That is my desire every day, whether at work or home - to make it better.

I wish to declutter minds today or straighten things up with words. Words can paint pictures and for me, helps me see and understand precepts better, for instance, conception. We know that a mature egg or ova is bombarded with seed or spermatozoa and just one of these seeds can penetrate the skin of that egg and it becomes fertilized or given life. It then floats around in the prepared womb until it finds a resting place and becomes rooted in to receive the nourishment it needs for the nine months ahead. Keep that picture in mind and just change the egg or ova into a mind, a person's mind, and change the seed or spermatozoa into the Word of God.

An individual's mind is constantly receiving words or thoughts and has the ability to accept or reject each one. When the Gospel is heard and received, it becomes the seed that has penetrated the mind and upon being received, has fertilized or given life to it. This life is not natural, but supernatural, because it is God's eternal life now residing in mind and as the natural fertilized egg floats till it becomes rooted in, that 'spiritualized' mind must become rooted in to God. The verse in John 1:12 says it clearly; "as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become a child of God, even to those who believe in His name." This newly fertilized egg has no chance of surviving unless it takes root in Jesus, the Word become flesh. A natural egg cannot choose, but a person has to and we are given the authority to do so and if we do, we then become God's child, a developing fetus taking in nourishment to develop us into that new creature who resembles his or her Father God.

#PromisesPromises

She was born in 1979, a little church with about 25 believers trusting Psalm 115:1, "not to us, O Lord, but to your name be honor and glory". She thrived for about ten years with good Bible teaching and many coming to know and follow Jesus, but the unthinkable happened and she died. Google will give three references, but there is no information because she died and only lives in the memory of a few.

Seventy years ago as of May 14 the nation of Israel was born. The nation was destroyed in 70 A.D. and for 2000 years Israel appeared dead. There was a remnant, always a remnant, and it seemed impossible that she would ever become a real nation, but it did happen. God had promised to restore His people to their land and today she is thriving. We have been witnesses to the fulfillment of promise God made in Isaiah 66:8 that in one day a nation would be formed and Isaiah 35:1,2 that the wilderness shall blossom abundantly. There is another promise made to everyone by God in Genesis 12:3 that He will bless those who bless His people and curse those who curse them. He will keep that promise, for sure.

We cannot count on most things lasting forever, even good things established with prayer and trusting God's Word. God raises up and puts down at His good pleasure and our task is to make sure we are in His good pleasure at all times. His plans need to be sought after. This is His universe after all and as owner He has the perfect right to have His desires met. Yes, He loves us extraordinarily and we are important to Him, but we are not the center of the universe with everything revolving around us. His Good Will Be Done!

#Curiosity?

It had been about 320 years that the offspring of Abraham were held in Egypt as slaves when Moses was born and through unusual circumstances was raised in Pharaoh's palace. His birth mother was given the first few years to nurse him and, because she believed in her father's God, Yahweh, she taught Moses about Him. When he was 40 years old he witnessed an injustice to one of his people and murdered the offender, but was discovered and had to run away to save himself from punishment. He ran to the wilderness to hide and kept sheep for another 40 years. One day, just strolling along in his flip-flops, he passed by an unusual sight. A bush was on fire and yet, not being burned up. He could have just glanced at it out of the corner of his eye while texting on his phone and not given it much thought, but he became curious and turned to look. The really interesting thing to me is what the text in Exodus 3:4 says about this. It specifically says that God waited to see what Moses would do and when He saw that Moses turned to look, then, He spoke to Moses.
God was testing him to see if he could see that God Himself was involved in this unusual circumstance. In the palace were magicians able to perform unusual events and he could have been cynical with the unusual, but because of what his mother had instilled in him, he could see God's involvement and was curious to find out more.
God may be trying to get your attention by some out of the ordinary circumstances in your life. He tells us in 1 John 4 to test the spirits to see if they are of Him. We can't just accept the unusual as of God because we may be fooled, but we can test them against the Scripture to see if they align up with the truth of God's word. God may be waiting for you to check out the unusual and if you do, He will reveal more of Himself to you. Just being curious about God and wanting to know more can be the beginning of so much more. Moses was honored by being made the leader of his people out of slavery to the edge of the promised land because he turned and looked.

#Cars,Cats&Toasters

Two weeks ago we had our third snow of about three inches and I let my son take my car to work, since it was safer to drive in the snow than his. He put the brake on when he parked in our sloping drive. The next morning I warmed the car and remembered to release the brake and took off. As I rounded the corner I heard this awful sound like a flat tire. No indicator lights were on, but I pulled over to check the tires. Nothing looked wrong but the sound continued as I pulled into the parking lot at work. I prayed that God would take care of it and get me home safely. He did and the sound disappeared. It might have been frozen snow packed near the wheel. I love my car and besides reading the instruction book when new, I have gotten to know it. I know how it will turn at corners and respond to pressing on the accelerator and how hard to press my foot on the brake. I have great delight in my car. I take care of the maintenance regularly and try to keep it clean so I can enjoy it for a long time.
I know my cat, Sophie, and crack the door only a little bit to check if she is there first, because I know she will dart out if given the slightest chance. She loves to have her chin scratched and doesn't care to have her tummy scratched. I have gotten to know her and I have gotten to know my toaster. I learned which setting works best for bagels and which for bread. I paid attention after I burnt some toast to make sure the settings were correct.
Remember that song - "Getting to know you, getting to know all about you. Getting to like you and hope you like me"? How important is getting to know God, to you? There are good reasons for getting to know your Creator. Just as I learned about burnt toast or gotten scratched by Sophie because I scratched her tummy, there are consequences for not knowing God. There are serious consequences that impact your life now and eternally. God has said, "Delight yourself in Me and I will give you the desires of your heart." That in itself was enough for me to start trying to get to know Him, by reading His word and checking out how He was involved in Abraham's and Joseph's and David's lives and by appreciating His creativity and how He answers prayers. I have just begun to scratch the surface, since He is infinite and, fortunately, I will have eternity to get to know Him better and delight in Him.

#HopeSpringsEternal

Well, I sure hope so. The last verse in 1st Corinthians 13 says that - "now abides these three, faith, hope and love, but the greatest is love." Faith finds its resting place and for a believer or a 'faither' that resting place is in Jesus as Redeemer. Love is eternal for even in heaven, the eternal home of the believer or 'faither' there will be love. Hope does have its end when that for which you hope finds its fulfillment. There will be no reason for hope in heaven. But when your hope is gone in this earth, when you have exhausted your ability to hope, when you have hoped so very long and it looks still looks hopeless, you will become despondent. You will give up. All three of these qualities are important to richness of life. Life without love is cold. Life without faith is hard, but life without hope can only go so far.
John Milton, in 1634, is credited with the phrase 'every cloud has a silver lining'. Your life may be totally covered by a big humungus black cloud for days. But all clouds have a beginning and an end and if you wait just long enough the end of that big black cloud will be edged with silver because the sun will be behind it, ready to peek through. That is a picture of hope. There is no need to allow yourself to become hopeless because there is an end to black clouds and the sun will shine again.
Each of us needs encouragement and we hardly take time to get a sense of others state of hope  Its, "Hello," "How are you?" and "Fine, thanks." and we move on. Perhaps there is no time to delve into others lives and perhaps they don't want it all to hang out, but we can say a short prayer and ask God to shower them with His loving-kindness.
Wouldn't that be fun, to go around all day and shower everyone with whom we have contact, with a big bundle of God's loving-kindness?

#BeingHonest

Being an unknown author is an experience. Your relatives and friends are proud of you and even buy your book and say nice things to you about your book, but the public is totally unaware of your work and could care less. There have been a couple of people that thought "The Treasure is the Trip" to be of some value that they bought extra copies to give away. That thrilled me.
I have requested some readers to write three or four reasons why they liked my book to give it some credibility. Two have come in, one from my boss and one from my grandson. The one from my boss is on my web page. My grandson wrote that he enjoyed reading of my journey and how God showed me that He was in control and I could trust Him and relax. He finished by saying he was going to try that, also. He got the idea. That was the main reason I wanted to publish the book, so that others could see how wonderfully involved God is in His children's lives and that He can be trusted to take care of us in the best possible way as we turn to Him and we can relax. His remarks will be on the web page, soon.
The press release printed by the Beloit Daily News was good, but I had to call them and ask if they got the notice. Of all the papers this release was sent to not one has responded to the offer by WestBow that they will send a copy of my book to any editor or book reviewer when requested. I am an unknown commodity and just as serious, I do not know 'people'. As I said to Hillary, "Except the Lord build it, they that do so, do it in vain". God gave me the story. It is rightfully His book. If He wants it built, it will be built. We can watch and see what will happen and give Him the Glory He deserves.
For sure, I will keep you posted!

#TheNitty-Gritty

He was sitting in a wheel chair in the hospital and his dad was sitting next to him. It had been about two weeks since he waked up after being in a semi-coma for four days. The head-on collision had caused an enclosed head injury, a Traumatic Brain Injury. All the pieces of the puzzle composing the picture in his brain had been tossed up in the air and had landed in disarray. His dad asked him what was he sitting in and he could not remember the right words. He was floundering in an enormous sea of forgetfulness. When he got home after being in rehab for four months, he would sit in front of his computer trying to communicate with someone and always a dictionary was at his knee. When you can't remember a word,  where do you start looking in a dictionary? Perhaps you have an idea what letter the word begins with, but there are hundreds of words that begin with that letter, so, then what?
You just look and look and try different avenues to get there. It takes time and effort to put the pieces of the puzzle back together and get the picture right. It gets gritty.
In my book "The Treasure is the Trip" I tell the story of my son's accident and unusual circumstances surrounding it that caused me to know that it was no 'accident', that God's hand was working. God is good. The goodness of His character is unquestionable. He has a plan for each of us, a plan for good and not evil. It may appear evil or hurtful at times, but God has the long view in mind and the temporary is just that 'temporary'.
When I was a lab technician working in a hospital lab, we did bleeding and coagulation times on brand new baby boys before circumcision to make sure they were not bleeders. Their tiny heel had to be stuck with a lancelet and of course it hurt. There were some who didn't want to do it because they didn't want to make the baby cry. I would volunteer because I knew their safety was at stake. They needed the hurt to make sure they wouldn't bleed to death.
You can bank on this - God knows exactly what you need and even though it hurts for a while, it will reap good in the long haul as you trust Him over the nitty-gritty.