And Suddenly...Spring

"My soul longs, yes, even faints For the courts of the LORD; My heart and my flesh cry out for
the living God.
Even the sparrow has found a home, And the swallow a nest for herself, Where she may lay
her young-- Even Your altars, O LORD of hosts,
My King and My God.
Blessed are they who dwell in Your house;
They will still be praising You. SELAH...
As they pass through the valley of Baca,
They make it a spring; The rain also covers
it with pools. They go from strength to strength...   Psalm 84: 2-4, 6, 7a


As I go from His strength to strength from one day to the next, suddenly I notice that once again we have made it through another winter. I will hang out laundry today in celebration. As I sat reading the Word this morning, I noticed a couple of little birds up in the rafters on the front porch. They are getting ready to have their family once again. No one told the birds that the world seems to be falling apart at the seams. They are doing what God appointed them to do. No one told them it was time to do it, they just knew it, because God gave them that wisdom.

One day last year my husband and I were walking up at the junior high and a couple of branches fell down from a beautiful white birch tree on the lawn. I arranged them together to make this cross. It was at a time when we were yet struggling through a long standing trial. Yet as I formed the cross, I reminded myself that as long as there are seasons, there is hope. For God promised us the seasons until the end of time.

God promised Noah after the great flood of the continuity of the seasons in Genesis 8:22 after Noah offered a sacrifice after the flood.

"While the earth remains,
Seedtime and harvest,
Cold and heat,
Winter and summer,
And day and night
Shall not cease."

Though in my minuscule mind I cannot fathom how the world has managed not to destroy herself, I know that God is allowing the earth yet again to wake up from another winter here in the Northern Hemisphere. And as long as the earth remains, He will give me the strength for yet another day. Just like the Israelites had to gather manna every single day, I gather my "manna" for the day as I start it with coffee and the Word.

Sometimes the words just float on past my brain and I realize I have been thinking of something else altogether. I then go back and look at the passage again. Sometimes I realize that reading the Word, or hearing it taught, for that matter, is like having a spaghetti battle. You get what sticks to you. (I was given that expression many years ago when I wasn't sure how much of the Word I was retaining. I think it's a good analogy.)

So it is that we also have seasons in our life, too. I remember the earliest seasons, and all the anxiety I had as I grew into a young woman and tried to find my place in the world. Then the season of motherhood, with the feeling of being overwhelmed in trying to find a way to be a decent mother to three kids who needed me. I did not realize it at the time, but it turns out it seems that was a short season that I had young ones under my feet. How quickly they all sprouted from the nest. And now, I am in a blessed season as grandchildren are the light of my life. I can look at them a bit differently than I did my own children, because I know now how quickly they will grow up. But it is also a season of helping to care for my elderly parents, and not knowing what the future will hold in terms of them needing me.

It is easy for me to take on the role of "parent" in some ways as I see life becoming overwhelming for my mother. But I remember I will be the next one in her shoes. At life's end, it can be a struggle to face the winter season of one's life. I just hope that my memory will hold as much of the Word as it can to get my own self through my winter season, if the Lord should tarry that long.

But, in all these thoughts about seasons, it is comforting to know that the Lord only wants us to trust Him for each single day He gives us. I don't quite think He is into ten year plans and five year plans, though I could be wrong on that. I just know He says:

"So don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today's trouble is enough for today." (Matthew 6:34, NLT)

And so, as the eternal, endless Day approaches, I anticipate a future with no more night, no more curse, no more death, no more pain. And it is all because of the great gift of Jesus taking all my sins to His body that spring day so many years ago.

If you are not sure you have eternal life, believe the testimony God gives us of His Son:

"For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16, NLT)

Fighting against God is a losing battle

"Through the tender mercy of our God,
With which the Dayspring from on high
has visited us;
To give light to those
who sit in darkness
and the shadow of death,
To guide our feet into the way of peace."

Luke 1: 78-79

The things that seem impossible with men are possible with God. Just like a crocus popping out of barren ground in February, so God's ways take us by surprise. He even surprised the Pharisees.

I laughed a bit when I read in Matthew 27 today. After the body of Jesus was crucified and secured in the tomb with the huge stone to cover it, the Pharisees were still not satisfied. It was like they knew He would resurrect, and yet they refused to see. In vain tried to stop it somehow.

All these things happened when Christ was crucified: the veil of the temple was ripped in two, darkness over the land from the sixth to the ninth hour, graves were opened and bodies of buried saints were raised. Wouldn't that be enough to indicate Jesus was no ordinary man? Yet the Pharisees could not see, would not see, and plotted in vain to stop Christ from rising from His tomb.

Can't you just hear them still fussing and fuming before Pilate? "Sir, we remember, while How He was still alive, how that deceiver said, 'After three days I will rise.' Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away, and say to the people, 'He has risen from the dead.' So the last deception will be worse than the first."

Pilate said to them, "You have a guard; go your way, make it as secure as you know how." So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard." Matthew 27: 62-66

Maybe even Pilate laughed when he thought of their useless effort and worry. It reminds me of Psalm 2, how men will try in the last days to come against the Most High and God Himself will laugh.

"Why do the nations rage,
And the people plot a vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying,
'Let us break Their bonds in pieces
And cast away their cords from us.'

He who sits in the heavens shall laugh;
The Lord shall hold them in derision.
The He shall speak to them in His wrath,
And distress them in His deep displeasure:
Yet I have set My King
On My holy hill of Zion..."

Psalm 2: 1-6

The great men of the earth actually think they can fight against God and win?

I think of myself too. God has laid out for us the way to happiness, the way to peace, and somehow I think I can find it some other way? God is no respecter of persons and God is not mocked either. We will reap what we sow, no matter who we are, no matter what we've done.

Right now, it might appear that evil is winning. It might appear that God is far off, and that we have been left to our own devices down here on planet earth. But at just the right time, Christ will return and make war with the evil one and all those who choose to side with him.

It may not seem like it could happen, but neither did it seem that the stone of the tomb would be rolled away, either.

All the prophecies in the Old Testament that told of Jesus' first coming came true, so why would we think the prophecies of His second coming will not come true either? The day is coming quickly.
It is surely going to happen, just like the Bible said it would: "And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon." Revelation 16: 16.

A few chapters later, the great battle is described again: "And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone." Revelation 19: 19-20 (emphasis mine)

We choose which side we will be on. Either choose with the Victor or with the one who thinks he can fight against God and win. To not choose is really siding with the loser. The day and the hour grow late, but the gift of salvation is still a free gift, and today is still the day of salvation to all who will call upon the name of Jesus.

"Look unto Me, and be saved,
All you ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other." Isaiah 45:22

You can't find against God and win.

One Endless Discovery

A picture of inside the Nelson Cross Reference Guide to the Bible.

"And further, my son, be admonished by these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh."
Ecclesiastes 12: 12

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words
will by no means pass away."
Matthew 24: 35

"Today if you will  hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts..."
Hebrews 2: 7, 8


 My recurrent dream came again last night. I am taking a test I am in no way prepared for. In this case, it is a huge advanced math exam, with sines and co-sines and I have not prepared in the least for it. I will have to guess at every answer. There are 100 questions and I must get at least 50 of them in order to pass this course and thereby graduate.

Maybe because just yesterday I wrote of finishing off nursing school while pregnant with our first child thirty years ago, did this thought of tests enter my subconscious mind again. But I have had this dream, with different variants, over and over for years. I have not finished my degree and must pass this test in order to graduate and I find that I am not ready. What does it all mean?

I told my husband my dream again in the middle of the night. He said maybe it was me being too hard on myself, or something to that effect. But it makes me wonder. Each day I spend time with God in His Word and usually find time to pray to Him. Am I not preparing for my final exam?

The final exam will be on a day unannounced. There will be the sound of a trumpet, and suddenly I will be transported from the mundane, upsetting cares and worries of this life. I will be before Him who has eyes as a flame of fire. Though my sins are paid for and put away, I will give an account of my words and how I spent the time He gave me on this earth to get to know Him.

Even the Apostle Paul expressed doubt until the very end of his life. In I Corinthians 9: 24-27 he said:

"Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things, Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight, not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified."

It was only in his last prison epistle, shortly before his head went into a basket, that Paul expressed confidence:

In I Timothy 4: 7-8, Paul wrote: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing."

I hope to be one who loves His appearing. But there are so many distractions today. I could totally be caught off guard. Then again, I think of how I have been blessed to be in a solid church where the Word is the focus. I have Bibles, commentaries, Greek and Hebrew dictionaries, the Nelson Cross Reference Guide to the Bible, which I cannot recommend more highly and  I also have wonderful online references, including my favorite, the Blue Letter Bible website.

Jesus gave us this somber warning in Luke 12: 48: " For to everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more."

And so I plug on in the Word. And the more I plug, the more treasures I find. Each day as I read, I like to find verses that stand out to me, and write them in my journal. Sometimes I will use the cross reference guide to look them up and find even more similar verses on that subject. One thing is for sure, I will never exhaust learning all there is to learn.

And suddenly, I realize, that is what my life is really all about: one endless discovery of knowing that which can't be known: the fathomless depths of His love for me, and not for me only, but the whole world. Chuck Missler once said that if you make Bible study your lifelong hobby, it will not be hard to get excited about spending time in the Word. I like that. Bible study, the more I get of it, becomes more and more desirable. Why? Because I have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

"Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious." I Peter 2:1-3

Trading Gloom for Gladness

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither My ways are your ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall My word that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return to Me void, but shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." Isaiah 55: 8-11


I am so glad that God's thoughts are not my thoughts. I am so glad that He altogether knows me, and still finds a way to love me. I was just thinking that this morning, how great is His patience and mercy and grace toward me to lift my head above the gloom on this earth.

The dark days of winter affect  me and it's easy for me to get overwhelmed with all the bad things that are happening in the world. I just finished a long book about Stalin's daughter and read a fictional book about a man with Alzheimer's. It was downright depressing to learn about the crimes of Stalin and his poor daughter who never seemed to be able to escape from his shadow, no matter how far she ran. The man with the Alzheimer's ended up killing himself by the end of the book.

Suddenly I realized that if I choose to dwell on sadness, there is always plenty of it to go around. Misery sure loves company. Though it felt like the furthest thing from what I wanted to do,  I began to pray yesterday, and I started to praise and thank God for everything, even the so called bad things in my life, and the things I do not understand.  The heavy burden on my back suddenly lifted.

I may not realize why God allowed certain hurtful situations in my life to go on for such a long time. That is OK. He does know the reason, and all I need to do is to keep on trusting Him day by day, minute by minute. One day life in this vale of tears will be over, and I will see Him face to face. My questions will be gone in an instant.

Out of many exhortations in the Word, yesterday I stumbled upon Jude 1:21 which says to "keep yourselves in the love of God." Now what an encouragement that is to a melancholic personality, to always remind myself that God absolutely loves me and proved it by dying  on the cross.  I realized that I had let myself slip further and further from that very thing. It was easy to read about others' misfortunes and get caught up in a kind of morbid curiosity about it all. It is kind of like getting hooked into soap operas, caught up with imaginary characters with no basis in reality.

The end result is sadness. On the other hand, if I dwell on the fact that the devil has been defeated once and for all, I begin to share in the results of Christ's victory over sin and hell and death. I keep telling myself that it really is true, no matter how bad things look, we have read the back of the book and we win if we are in Christ.

"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." I Corinthians 15:26

"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on the things above, not on the things on earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." Colossians 3: 1-3.

It is not boring to think about Christ, if  someone thinks that. Christ is the most interesting and the happiest Person who ever walked the face of this earth, even though He bore all our sorrows. If I dwell on His patience with others, His giving of Himself, His focus on God's will rather than His own, it will eventually rub off on me so that I might have the great privilege of extending a tiny portion of His grace to  weary and battered souls who are desperate in the gloom. It is about letting others see Christ somehow through this body of flesh. It might be just a small glimpse, but that is what I want others to see. And on my final day on this side, I want to say what David said:

"As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake, with Thy likeness." Psalm 17:15

What's Really Super about Today

Who has ascended into heaven

or descended? Who has gathered the

wind in his fists? Who has bound

the waters in a garment? Who has

established all the ends of the earth?

 What is His name, and what

is His Son's name, If you know?

Every word of God is pure: He is a
shield to those who put their trust in Him.   Proverbs 30: 4-5

Super Bowl Sunday is a national holiday anymore. This year, it's even more remarkable
because it is the 50th Super Bowl. Our TV seems to have broken down the other day but I am not  worried about missing the Super Bowl.

But really, what is so super about this day? What is so great about a couple of teams of guys dressing up in their armament and playing before a crowd of millions, if not billions of people? Yes, they are strong and talented athletes. But is that impressive to God? Have they or could they do what our Creator has done in making this creation? Is it worth the millions and billions of dollars of food and advertising that will be spent on this day?

I guess I am just a wet blanket.

But God, on the other hand, He is great. And the fact that He longs to be in close relationship with people like us is what makes today, and everyday super. The Proverb writer says He holds the winds in His fists, and binds the waters with a garment. A simple search on the Blue Letter Bible website on the words "how great" came up with these verses, among others:

Psalm 31:19 "Oh how great is Your goodness, Which You have laid up for those who fear You, Which you have prepared for those who trust in You. In the presence of the sons of men."

(One day, we will see His goodness and it will be beyond our imagination.)

Psalm 92:5 "Oh Lord, how great are Your works! Your thoughts are very deep!

Psalm 139:17-18a "How precious are your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand...

Daniel 4:3 "How great are His signs, And how mighty His wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, And His dominion is from generation to generation."

When I am tempted to despair, it helps me so much to recall that God is great, and that He actually wants to share own His life with someone like me. I am personally acquainted with the God who made the universe. That is even more exciting than knowing the winning quarterback from today's game.

While I Have My Being

Psalm 104: 1, 33-34

Bless the LORD, O my soul!
O LORD my God, You are very great!
You are clothed with honor and majesty...

I will sing to the LORD as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.

May my meditation be sweet to Him;
I will be glad in the LORD.



If I would really try to number my days, I would be more careful to be occupied with Christ. For I  see before my eyes how fleeting my days really are, each day when I look into my 8x magnification mirror in the morning and see my face getting older. A dear friend just lost her Dad to Alzheimer's and as I watch loved ones struggling with memory issues, I am reminded that my day, too, is coming. I might be faced with memory issues. I remember Mom saying that I had my whole life ahead of me. I was sitting in the backseat of our Ford Country Sedan that day and my legs hardly reached over the edge of the seat. I remember it like yesterday, though it was almost fifty years ago.

I can walk into a room and forget what I went in there for, or catch myself repeating the same story. I don't like it. But it is all part of the seasons of life. Just like there are four seasons in nature, it seems there are fall and winter seasons as we age and prepare for life after death.In some ways, I don't mind the fact that I am growing older, for I really don't want to have to learn life lessons over again.

But reading this Psalm this morning, I was encouraged to resolve that I can yet praise God while I have my being. In the limited amount of days God give me, with mind intact,  I can choose to put on the mind of Christ (Phil 2:5) and let His Words dwell richly within me (Col. 3:16).

Each day I must choose. It's easy for me in the morning, but as the day wears on I find that I can easily lose my focus. Sometimes when I hit the pillow I am so relieved to just pull up the covers and call it a day. But in the morning, He renews my strength.

How about you? If I think that I am in my mid 50's already, I probably only have a couple of decades left, if that. I don't want to be bitter. I don't want to have regrets. So I must choose now to keep off the  old man and clothe myself afresh each day with the mind and thinking of Christ. In this way, I can choose happiness with the number of days left allotted to me on this planet. And if my memory starts to go, I hope that the memories that remain will be thoughts of how precious my Savior and Lord is, and how much He proved His love to me, and not only to me, but to the whole world.

Each day I choose, now, so that hopefully at the end I will die like the Psalmist, so glad in the LORD, and anticipating a glorious and hope filled future. The time to do it is now.

"...Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion." Hebrews 3:15

Light Overwhelms this World's Darkness

Most assuredly I am saying to you, He who habitually hears My word and is believing on the One who sent Me has life eternal, and into judgment he does not come, but has been permanently transferred out of the sphere of death into the life. Most assuredly I am saying to you, There comes an hour and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those having heard shall live.

John 5: 24-25
New Testament an Expanded Translation by Kenneth S. Wuest Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1961

I read these words this morning, as I have read them many times before, and they came alive to me. Those who have believed really will not come into judgment! There is a day coming... when the dead shall really hear the voice of the Son of God.

I believe with all my heart that day is drawing near quickly. This new year of 2016 has not gotten off to a good start if you just even look at the economy. But that's only the start of our problems. Man is cruel and beastly toward his fellow man. There's no more right and wrong, every man does what is right in his own eyes, just like in the days of the judges of Israel. (Judges 21:25)

But yet my heart is overflowing with hope, even in a world where nothing seems to make sense anymore. I think of Jesus' claims: He is the Light, the Bread, the Door, the Good Shepherd of the sheep. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

As I was praying, I was overcome with a thought for a friend who has a loved one suffering from depression. This person has become overwhelmed with the thought that we are living in the last times. But I was convinced that if he could just grab hold of the fact that Jesus is the Light of the world, his burden could be lifted, as mine was many years ago.

I used to be overwhelmed with all the sadness of the world. I was told I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders and told to lighten up, crack a smile, wipe the worry lines off of my young face. But I could not.

Today, the world is worse. But yet I have hope. How could it be that you have hope, someone might ask. Just take one of the claims of Jesus: He is the light of the world.

Wuest again brings out beautifully the gist of  Jesus' claim here:

"Then Jesus spoke again to them, saying, I alone, in contradistinction to all others, am the light of the world. He who habitually follows with me shall positively not order his behavior in the sphere of the darkness, but shall possess the light of the life." John 8:12 Wuest translation, emphasis mine

Just one of Jesus' many claims, and yet what a promise to lay hold of. I hate it when I get up at night and it is pitch black. One time, I was staying at my sister's house in the country and was sleeping in their game-room downstairs. A summer storm hit and knocked out the electricity. I needed to use the bathroom but could not see anything around me, it was pitch black. I didn't know which way to go, whether left or right, and kept bumping into things. For that moment, I felt overwhelmed by the darkness all around me, yet also an urgency to find light. After groping in confusion for a couple of minutes, I finally found the stairs which led up to the bathroom. The lights had come back on upstairs, and I could see my way out of the darkness. What a relief!

That moment sticks out in my memory, because it represents my life before I found Jesus. I groped in darkness until I heard one day that Jesus bore my sins upon the cross. I trusted Him at that moment to save me from my sins, and yet like Lazarus, I was still bound by grave-clothes.

Jesus, after commanding Lazarus to come forth, asked others to take his grave-clothes. In my life, it took years  to start to understand just the tip of the iceberg of the greatness of that gift Christ gave me in my salvation. Through receiving the love of Christ demonstrated in His body , I came to realize that only God, His Word, and His loving Body could help me unwrap myself from the tethers of religion and the devil's accusations.

It is the best gift in the entire world, yet it takes our entire lifetime to open it and find out what it really means. It comes to us more and more as we find a place to grow in grace and knowledge of Him, but also as we read the Word itself as a habit.

Somehow, the more I read, the more treasures pop out at me just the like Jesus being the light of the world. If someone is struggling with sadness, a burden which seems too heavy to be lifted, take heart from this one promise from Jesus.

If you have Jesus, you have light, and you will not be left to grope in the darkness.

"All things through His intermediate agency came into being, and without Him there came into being not even one thing which has come into existence. In Him life was existing. And this aforementioned life was the light of men. And the light in the darkness is constantly shining. And the darkness did not
overwhelm it."  John 1: 3-5 Wuest translation, emphasis mine.

Even if your darkness appears to overwhelm the path you are on, remember that light and darkness cannot co-exist. Trust Him to light your path, and He will today and forever.