Cozy

Like many preschoolers, my granddaughters like to follow a naptime ritual when they are at my house—and heaven forbid if we miss a step in the process.

First, they haul their sleeping bags out of the closet and situate them on the couch so that their matching pillows rest on either end. Then they stretch their little bags out so their feet meet in the middle. Most of the time this layout works very well. Other times I have to sit in between them as they fall asleep to thwart their attempts to kick the stuffing out of each other.

Faith, TP and Peanut M&Ms

Yippee Ki-Yay!

Back in the days when I roamed the streets freely, wandered the large aisles of Walmart at will, and naively stood arm-lengths distance from friends and neighbors (i.e. two-weeks ago), I started to see the first pangs of Corona V's effect in grocery stores. I had heard rumors that toilet paper was hard to find, but I thought people were exaggerating. It seemed so ridiculously hard to believe—way back then.

FB Fasting and Prayer

I have been fasting from Facebook this month. Not an easy thing, especially with the incredible events of the past few weeks. 

My FB fast started after an argument with God.

Peace and Joy

Peace and Joy

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. ³Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5:1-5)

I admit, I raised my eyebrows a little bit this morning as I read the introductory title to this first paragraph of Romans chapter five. Peace and Joy. 

It’s not an unexpected title for a selection of Scripture, but the paragraph that follows this intro contains some hard-hitting sentences: "And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings …" (vs. 2-3)

Hmmm.

Being a Jonah

Most of us dream of being a hero. If calamity was imminent and we had the means to stop it, we hope we would be the one to step forward, shake the mothballs off our cape and save the world. Or perhaps on a more believable scale, stand in the gap when needed and do the small but heroic deed.

We want to be the King David of the faith (of course before the incident with Bathsheba), or the Paul or Peter of the New Testament (again, during their good times).

But what if we are actually more like Jonah?

Raising the Dead

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered…We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” 2 Corinthians 1:8—9

Are you familiar with the meme that showed up in late December of a sledgehammer violently smashing the year “2018?” For many it was not a good year. Out with the old, and the sooner the better. 

The Gift of the Spirit

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." (Galatians 5:23—24)

I became a Christian believer at the age of four years old. Which means I have experienced forty (plus) years of God’s Spirit working in my life—shaping, transforming, smoothing out my rough edges, and tending my soul-soil to produce his fruit.

You would think by now I would be in pretty nice spiritual shape.