Happy Friday!
I had a few extra days at the lake with my littlest while the others went off to camp this week. While I'm not a better playmate than her siblings or friends she was happy to have some "mommy and me" time.
A nice beach afternoon shifted to a stormy night. The weather got a little crazy and we were on a tornado watch that evening. I sat in the sunroom gazing over the writhing lake, as the sun went down, the wind whistling and black circling clouds looming above.
Usually I have the windows open, letting the lake breeze flow through, but it's amazing how quickly you can start to freak yourself out. With the ominous weather I started hearing the wind whistle, questioning the low ceiling of clouds and whether they were rotating and then I heard what sounded like a train. Okay it really was a train, but I decided to close the windows and the patio door and just sit inside rather than incessantly imagining.
It was quiet inside.
I could watch the chaos outside but there was stillness indoors. We batten down the hatches when there's a storm, preparing and securing what we can, then we stay still and wait it out.
"He is my steadfast love and fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield and he in whom I take refuge" (Ps 144:2).
David was a mighty warrior and a renowned king, but rather than bolstering his confidence in what he could do, or had done, he drew to his knees in humble dependence on the sovereignty of the Lord.
This week when you come across difficulties, may you be encouraged in the grace and strength of your Fortress. Batten down your hatches and take refuge in the safety He provides.
This Week on the Blog
This Week in Articles
"We need to push past the resignation and examine whether or not our chronic tiredness reveals a deeper issue. To be sure, our amount of sleep can be affected by our circumstances. But I think we also need to consider if that’s due to an underdeveloped view of sleep itself and the role it has in our lives as image bearers of God and followers of Jesus." And 4 perspectives to consider.
"Our name, however illustrious it may be among men, before God stands only for inconsistency and sin; but there is a name, a potent name, a blessed name, a glorious name an everlasting name, that we may put upon our lips as a sacrament, and upon our forehead as a crown, and that is the name of Jesus…"
"The self-righteous soul is in danger of a far more subtle form of rebellion, namely, responding in sinful anger to the sin of others out of a faux sense of moral superiority." Some food for thought as we consider our own feelings of anger.
"He loves to take what’s broken, empty, and dead and make it whole, full, and alive. Obedience is met with his overflowing waterpots of grace."
This article addresses the question, does our relational ministry within our local communities include young people?
