I like comments.  At the least, they mean someone is reading.  Even better when my Sister is the commenter.

The setting is entirely too weird.  But remember.  I am out.  Read the post, Out.
I just keep forgetting.

That becomes the essential question.  Why do I keep forgetting how loved I am?
But that takes me to Wow, amazing how loved I am and how often I am aware of it and grateful for it when I am aware.

Can it be that the love of God really is so big that I can stand in the mire and be overwhelmed with goodness?  I am so ungrateful.

Daddy, forgive me.  You are so good to me.  You surround me with love.  You catch me when I stumble.  And sometimes I remember to thank you and celebrate.

Please show me the other side.  Grant me a vision of the future on the other side of this transformational season.  Sure, I want to run away.  Help me run away to you now.  I am so sorry but you are still worth, no matter what I do and say wrong.

I felt your hand on me this morning when I was in challenging times.  Thank you.  Please do not remove your hand of favor from me and your family here in Florence.

Rest for My Soul

Torment is not normal, but it is available. I do not know what I stepped in, but I am having some trouble getting it off of my shoe. The saving grace is that reality is on the other side of owning that shoe and needing to perfect it to be happy.

There is rest for my soul...and for yours too. I caught myself asking myself about that line, rest for all. I did not feel in rest. But that did not and does not change the essential fact that there is rest for all. If I am not at rest, that is the result of my choosing to be somewhere else.

Years ago I was telling Patrick about my vision of Hope. I just recalled it, and how rich it was, and is. No need to even go near the edge. Upon a rock that is higher than I. Big enough that at the center, at the feet of God, I can not even see the edge. And then as I fall into the grace of God, I even forget the edge. My enemies can not get up here on their own. I can go to the edge and look down on them and laugh, but that takes me away from gazing, in rapture.

Father, thank you for rapture.

Gratitude Grows with Gratitude

Gratitude grows with gratitude.

It is good to remember a gift. It is better to remember and express thanksgiving. The gates of grace open wide.

How the nations do rage. There was never just one moment of refusing to say thank you. Longstanding patterns of habit. Cultural disinclination toward gratitude expressed to God. Habits of thanking the wrong god. Habits of thanking, congratulating self. Habits of uttering acknowledgement of a god as the source, without any personal knowledge of the truth, making the utterance a rut. So habits grow with habitual steps, digging the rut ever deeper.

After a while, even thinking about gratitude, therefore thinking about gifts to be grateful for,brings the life of God. Or brings me to the spout where the Glory comes out. Walking in pursuit of living water and gratitude for it brings life. Seeing where life is touching darkness brings vision for restoration.

My God, you are good!

Delight yourself also in the LORD: and he shall give you the desires of your heart.

Delight yourself also in the LORD: and he shall give you the desires of your heart.

For a long time I have thought about the two ways of reading that last clause. In the Word of Faith church, where I heard it first, it was about getting stuff. At least to a certain extent. Depended on who you were listening to. Made sense in that context, too. God loves me and gives me the things that I desire.

The other thought has been that, while I am in the process of delighting myself in the Lord, He will be in the process of giving me desires.

So lately, as the essential core of this walk in the Holy Wild, leaning on Christ, delighting myself with being with Him, practicing faith by clinging to my King, goes on, He has been teaching me to desire new things.

I know that I am a social guy, but for several months, Father has been showing me that He wants me to sit in public and drink coffee. There is no reason to expect that it is not about prayer, that I am not there to pray. I also suspect that it affords the opportunity, as well, to relate and to pour out Gods Love.

Did it today. There was a brand new kind of YES as a consequence, a fresh vision, like I got new eyes, and maybe new ears. Very Good.

Father, thank You for being available to delight myself in. Thank You for the rent curtain.