Lift up my eyes

 

The wind is wild. The rain sweeps in, sweeps through, and clears away the clouds so the sun can remind us it is springtime.

I complain, again. It’s too cold. This is like autumn. How can any of our struggling seedlings grow? (How can I grow?)

The world is weary. The news is discouraging. Dire, even. I can focus on my feelings and go down with the ship. Or I can lift my eyes to the hills and remember where our help comes from.

Today I choose to lift my eyes. I choose to sing my songs of praise. I choose to carve out time for creativity, for connection with the divine.

This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in Him. So many blessings. May my joy in Him spill over into constant prayer for those in trouble, those in deprivation, those in pain, those in grief, those in conflicts, confinements and fear. Those struggling under black clouds of despair. Lord, sweep those clouds away. Let your light shine in the darkest of places, restoring hope, bringing life, destroying the enemy’s efforts.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Perfect Circle

 

Perfect circle. Endless love. It is finished. We are seated in the heavenly realms at the side of our Saviour Jesus Christ. Seated. At peace. Fully trusting in his promises. Knowing he is faithful. By his grace we are saved.

When our words fall short, when our understanding is limited, pictures, colours, designs lift us into places of profound peace and security. So grateful to Elaine for opening up the avenue of art as a conduit to God.

So grateful for the endless creativity of our Lord, who invites us to approach him through so many pathways. May I always be open to explore new ways of worshiping the Lord of all, Jesus my redeemer.

His Forgettery

 

I wrote something on my computer yesterday and printed it out without saving it. Intentionally. I didn’t need to save it.

When I turned on the laptop this morning, I had a message that it had temporarily saved a Word document which I hadn’t saved, and where did I want it to go? AI, or the algorithms of this laptop, wants to give me a second chance to save something.

Another time I might be grateful for that grace, but not in this case.

Ours is a God of second chances, a God who forgives and moves on without saving a memory of that last infraction, that last failure, that last sin. ‘As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.’ (Psalm 103:12) He gives us free will so we have the choice of receiving his forgiveness, receiving his forgetfulness of that sin, or revisiting it and continuing to condemn ourselves.

I love that there is no condemnation now in Jesus. He has paid the price for those sins I committed yesterday, for those I will fall into today. Bad attitudes. Hastily spoken words. A heart that is too small.

Self-condemnation.

I accept his umpteenth chance and invite his help in moving on into the freedom of forgiveness, of knowing I am forgiven. And believing, truly believing, that the sins I have repented for, he has moved into his ‘forgettery’.

Free at last.

All I have needed

 

Glorious abundance can look messy. Certainly in our garden, it does! (Don loves No-Mow-May so much that he starts it in April!)

This crabapple tree is heavily laden with beautiful pale pink blossom, which will transform into vibrant red balls as the season progresses. Full of promise, and yet…one year I toiled to pick and cook them into a jelly which – nobody ate. Never again.

Hollow promise.

I started to reflect that I am no longer in the springtime of my life, but the Lord gave me pause. In him, all things are possible. I am in a different season for sure, but that season still can blossom with blessings which can transform into sweet fruit which others will eat and be refreshed. With God’s help.

New every morning. Great is your faithfulness, dear Lord. May my life blossom with promise today, promises of the Kingdom, promises which encourage and console and strengthen others as they look to you, Jesus. Those in seemingly impossible positions for whom I pray this morning, intervene with power, Lord, and surprise and amaze with blessings only you provide. In Christ alone.

All I have needed

 

All I have needed thy hand hast provided…

Monday morning, and as I run my eye over the diary of the upcoming week, this encouraging line echoes through my mind and awakens the truth we talked about in Bible study last week, from Ephesians, that in Christ we have all spiritual blessings.

However full the week looks, however demanding the expectations on us, however daunting the path ahead appears, in Christ we are more than conquerors and in Him, we can do it.

Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.

Grace and Peace

 

A short walk before dinner.

That last stretch before the road end is always littered with throw-away coffee cups, empty plastic water bottles and discarded fizzy drink cans. Hands full with this detritus, I distribute it in the bins at the road-end and consider that the distance between the fast-food outlets in Westhill and this road-end, a mile from the paint-ball grounds, can probably be measured in the time it takes to drink several ounces of liquids.

Why do so many people thoughtlessly throw their trash onto the verge in the otherwise beautiful countryside? I’m afraid you won’t find the answer here. I don’t know.

What I do know is that Jesus invites me to throw my trash, the rubbish of my worries and the smear of my sins, onto him. Unlike the countryside, which is besmirched by such profligate littering, Jesus accepts and absorbs and transforms all of the ugly stuff I give him and turns it into something beautiful, something holy even.

That is grace. Grace which invites us to live in God’s favour though we clearly don’t deserve that privilege. Grace which welcomes us with open arms, tattered and filthy as we are, enfolding us in divine love and forgiveness.

Grace which leads to the peace that passes all understanding; as we sink into the reality of his grace, we experience the peace which informs our very beings so that we can enter the minutiae of this day expecting to see Jesus transform all trash into treasure.

Grace and peace.

He never forgets

 

Gazing out the window, God drew my attention to one of the many gorse bushes glowing gold in the spring sunshine. It sits along the roadside, flanked by a couple of wild cherry trees, also resplendent in the pale pink of their spring bloom.

Nothing special about any of it. Gorse and ‘geen’ trees sprout in generous abundance across my field of vision, but for some reason I was drawn to contemplate these particular trees and bush.

Our house sits a mile or two from a hill where a famous battle was once fought, the Battle of Corrichie. It involved the rather infamous Mary Queen of Scots’ troops, against the Duke of Gordon. I imagine none of this land looked as it does now. Certainly our house was not standing. So I found myself wondering if, after this bloody confrontation, this field outside my window was a scene of devastation, scattered with the injured and dying and dead as they fled the scene. I wondered if, beneath the glorious golden gorse, there lay the now-decomposed body of a fallen fighter.

All speculation of course, but through this flight of imagination I heard the Lord assuring me that he never forgets anyone. Whoever may have fallen and lain forgotten, has never been forgotten by him. He counts the hairs on each of our heads, and he loves with an everlasting love, and he never forgets. We are all special to him, our Father.

Those loved and lost in my own life and yours: he has not forgotten. None are lost. His love is everlasting.