Borrowing a Sunset

Driving home this evening, I saw a beautiful sunset. I began thinking how things in our lives are like sunsets. Just because something is beautiful doesn't mean that you can keep it or that it will stay. You can see and enjoy these things but you can't capture them. Its just the way you can't capture the true essence of a sunset with a camera. Still, the sunset's value is not diminished. We only become dissatisfied when we attempt to hold onto the beauty in this life that was never meant to stay. Never plan to keep the beauty. Just borrow it for awhile.

I'm God's Puppy

I saw a girl walking her pretty golden lab puppy earlier today. The puppy was excited and wanted to stop and look at everything and experience it all. A little tug on his leash and he was off and running again following behind his master. It seems that we are like this with God. We often get distracted by things along our path that delay us or take us off course. Then, God gives us a little tug to get us refocused on the things that are important. There will be many things you will want to devote your time to that are neither productive nor constructive. Endeavor to keep following behind your master and do not let your excitement of the things of this world delay you or cause you to run ahead of your master who is in heaven. Follow behind him dilligently. Trust that he will let you stop and "sniff" the things that are better than anything you could find on your own. When you experience God's tug on your leash, even if it is a little painful at times, just realize that he is going come on, I've got better things to show you.

Seasons

Ecclesiates 3:1-8 tells us that there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven:... There is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gether them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away...
This means that there is a season for our relationships. No person will be in your life throughout its entirety. You will lose your grandparents probably before you leave college, and you will lose your parents before you become a grandparent. Your friends and boyfriends will come and go. The point is to recognize that those who are a part of your life were only intended to be there for a season. Be not suprised nor dicouraged when that season ends. Rejoice in the experience and in what you learned about life and yourself. Think of how the season has enriched your life and recall fondly the portion of your journey you took with the other person.
Never let fear of the season's end deny you of the season. Know that the season will end and accept it. Enjoy all the seasons that God has blessed you with. After all, a life filled with happy seasons is a happy life. We don't rail against the changing of winter into spring and neither should we fight the changing of life's seasons. Instead, we should await the coming season with hope and excitement rather than fear and anxiety. God is faithful throughout all our seasons and is the only one we can have a relatonship with that never comes to an end.

Patience

Patience is a virtue. It requires us to give up the one thing that we seem to have the least of and desire the most of and the thing we have no way of getting back once it has been lost: time. I find that I struggle to have patience. I know that my time on earth is but a breath, so I desire to use my time here as well as I can. Therefore, when I am waiting on other people or even God, I, at times, feel like I am wasting my non-renewable resource of time. What I need to remind myself when I feel the sand slipping through the hour glass is that for me and all Christians time is endless. If I truly have faith that upon leaving this world I go to one eternal then there is no such thing as time. I also need to remember that when I feel I am wasting "my" time that it doesn't belong to me at all. Once you acknowledge Jesus as your savior, your time is his time. What we all fail to recognize as Christians is that our time on this earth only has value in as much as it reflects Jesus Christ
To truly show Christ's love to others, put in the time. Do something that someone else wants you to do, something to benefit them or enrich their life in some way in lieu of what your natural tendency inclines you toward. However, do it without saying, "well, I am doing this for you but really I want to be....." No, you must do it whole heartedly and not begrudingly or resentfully. Not easy is it? This is why it's a virtue. You can do this on your own. This has to be done with the power of the Holy Spirit (God's presence in your life).

Desires of My Heart

God gives you the desires of your heart. Does this mean he gives you the things that your heart desires or he creates the desires in your heart? My heart is in one city and my body in another. If God has given me this desire I should be there, right?
I don't have the answers to these questions. I feel I could lose everything and live in a shack, being content, happy, and blessed so long as I didn't forget who my Lord is or who by consequence that makes me. I believe I could make it alone without being bitter or unhappy. God is in the business of healing broken hearts. He's healed one before I'm sure of. The only heart he can't heal is the one broken by denial of him.
I can't shake the belief that I would be happier without all of the things of this world with God as my captain than have all of them with myself as my captain. After all, alone I am never lonely. How could I be when I read the truth and talk to the One who wrote it?
Lord, there is your way and the highway and I've been out on that lonely road too long to want to keep traveling it. Show me the way home-the one that leads to life. I want to be yours more than I want to be any other thing. So whatever else is going on, that is the primary desire of my heart.