5 months?!

Almost 5 months since I've posted - augh! What kind of blogger am I? God is certainly speaking - I've even made notes about things I wanted to write - but my follow-through is lacking. Rather than lamenting, I will celebrate that I'm posting today. Yay for me!

I heard a sermon today based on Mark 4:35-5:1. It was a great sermon but what struck me the most isn't something the preacher said. It's something God showed me Himself. In verse 35 Jesus says, "Let us cross over to the other side." Then in verse 38 the disciples ask, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" That's how it appeared to them. Caught up in the storm, they forgot that Jesus had already told them that they would make it to the other side.

The first lesson for me in this is the freshness of God's Word. I've read these verses and heard this passage preached many times, but don't recall noticing this before. Though they didn't say it in quite these words, I've heard people complain about how they know all there is to know about certain familiar Bible events and get bored studying them again and again. Really? When we feel that way, all we have to do is ask God to speak to us and He will. Or could it be that He's speaking but because we think we know it all, we're not listening?

The other lesson I find is directly from the scripture. We may be tempted to condemn the people in the Bible. In this instance we might think, "They were the disciples. They spent every day with Jesus! Why were they so afraid? If I had been there, I wouldn't have been worried." I ask again, Really? I can't speak for you, but I find that I am more like the people in the Bible than I might care to admit. I may be knowledgeable about many Bible people and events. Perhaps I can recite a variety of Bible passages. But does my life reflect the things I claim to believe? Or like the disciples, do I allow myself to be overtaken by my circumstances and forget what Jesus has promised? How often do I respond to problems in my life with fear, worry, perhaps even panic? Certainly such responses are human nature, yet we are called to "walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Romans 8:1). "Grow(ing) in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18) does not just happen. Isaiah 26:3 comes to mind: if we would have perfect peace, we must keep our minds stayed on God. We must choose to focus on Him rather than on our problems. "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." (Philippians 4:8) My problems don't fit those categories. Do yours?

I have a list of promises to share, but this post has gotten long and I've gotten hungry. :-) So I will end with only one and post the others later. Romans 8:28 tells us that all things work together for our good, so in midst of our problems, we should look with anticipation to see what good God will bring forth.

In high school, we sometimes wrote stream of consciousness essays. Rather than being concerned with an outline, an opening, a conclusion, and other aspects of a "proper" essay, we were to write down whatever came to mind. As much as I try to make these posts make sense, I feel like the stream of consciousness style sometimes takes over. I enjoy thinking about and writing about God and how He speaks and works in my life. My prayer is that something in my musings is a blessing to those who read them. Thanks for reading!