A Little Bit of Everything Today...

I am so thankful to belong to the Lord. So thankful that He lets me call Him Father, that I can go into His presence in prayer, that I can trust Him, that I can know Him...so very thankful. I love belonging to Christ...so many thoughts fill my mind on a very regular basis, things pertaining to life and my relationship with Christ and those around me. Today it seemed like I had so many reflections on different things and I just wanted to document the many things I have thought about today and the many truths that the Lord has worked in my heart this very day...

One thing is from what I read from A Holy Experience: Peace is a Person. Oh, how I loved this entry. It talked about the nature of our lives how so much seems to be pressing us and how much we feel stress, but that peace isn't necessarily a place where we reside, but moreover a PERSON, that Person, JESUS CHRIST. I love this, so much of Ann's writings are bent on this, walking intimately with the Lord, in the midst of everything, abiding so close to Him and not living in a hurried state of an emergency. She said, "Stress deceives: Life is not an emergency." I love that. So good, so true. She also said,

"Doesn’t urgency over everything imply that God’s in control of nothing?Or do we secretly like blustering about perpetually stressed — because I suppose it’s evidence of the pressing importance of the work I am doing? And yet — if I’m on edge, doesn’t that mean I’m not centered in Him?"

So in light of that, I want to be centered on Him, in the place of Peace, abiding in Him every minute.

Another thing today that was so good for my soul was a lesson that the Lord has had in the making in my heart for a long time and will have for a long time, I suppose, possibly even my lifetime. The lesson of "looking unto Jesus". Not looking so hard at my own sin or the sins of others, but to Jesus, the "author and finisher of our faith". When I get my eyes on my sin, I falter because I miss His grace, His forgiveness, the ability to walk in newness of life. I am deceived. When I get my eyes on other's sins and how they have offended me, I falter because I miss grace for them, I stumble into self-righteousness, and an unloving spirit. Focusing too much on my sins or the sins of others causes me to stumble and sin in so many ways. But focusing my eyes on Jesus, helps me to walk rightly, to step one foot in front of the other, not wavering to the left or the right. I see where I need to go, and what I need to do: I watch Him for my example. The Lord reminded me in my spirit today that the reason I was having trouble loving some people is because I have gotten my eyes off of Him. Getting my eyes back on Him in this regard, immediately. Lord, let it be so!!!!

Thirdly, I heard a statement tonight from a friend. He said that his family had a magnet on their refrigerator that read: "This house is clean enough to be healthy, but messy enough to be happy!" That is the crux of what I want my home to be, that is what I want to be. Balanced so that mess is not as distasteful to me as it seems to be right now, but that I would have wisdom and grace to know how to think rightly about my home, not to idolize cleanness, but to desire a happy, healthy home for all who dwell here...