Thoughts Today

It is difficult to sort through feelings, but I want to remember these times. Times of waiting and much angst in the background. These times of loneliness coupled with adapting to another new place with exciting new people. I love it. These experiences have stretched me, made me gasp and long for deeper communion with God. They expose my lack of self-motivation. I preferred solitude, then I loathed it, now I come to savor it again.

There is so much loveliness in the real, practical disciplines of the Spirit. I have never mastered them, but He has Mastered me. There is contentment, in either abundance or emptiness. This is the context we exclaim “I can do all things through Him Who gives me strength!” My circumstances are good instructors, but it is my experience of Father in this- and this- situation. Lean on the Spirit to do the gospel imperatives. It is rather important and humbling to remember how far, and in what ways He carries us. Anxiety says “We’re all gonna die!” Faith says “Yeah, but My Father has resurrection power!”

What is it that gives me hope for the future? This is the posted note I am pondering. I know the Truth, but why does it take so long to soak into our hearts? At various given moments my hope can be in other points of time. I have Hope for the future because I have Hope today.

My husband and I are at peace about the future, but these tangible things are unsettled. We find comfort in the fact that though we plan our way, the Lord directs our steps. It is exciting to dream what to do with these lives and these wild possibilities. We have our wants, but so much more a firm knowledge that His will is the best, and that our best life is not now. It is that expansive, eternal life we are living in Christ, or rather, He is living in us.

Pondering with degrees of awe:
How does God take the little things I am doing today and make them matter, for His glory?

How Can I Keep From Singing?

My life flows on in endless song;

Above earth's lamentation,

I catch the sweet, though far-off hymn

that hails a new creation

Through all the tumult and the strife,

I hear that music ringing.

It finds an echo in my soul.

How can I keep from singing?

No storm can shake my inmost calm

while to that Rock I'm clinging.

Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth,

How can I keep from singing?

What though my joys and comforts die?

I know my Savior liveth.

What though the darkness gather round?

Songs in the night He giveth.

The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,

a fountain ever springing!

All things are mine since I am His!

How can I keep from singing?

Robert Lowry