"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."...John 3:17
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Oh! You simply must hear Reba sing Back To God. My, my, my. (I'll wait for you if you'd prefer to listen, first.)
Ready?
Last night I sat here listening and thinking, "Wow, Anointed Song City!" And words like these made me cry---
"In these darkest days
Are you not afraid
That it's too late?
. . . We gotta keep on prayin'
Cuz we're still worth saving.
We can't go on like this,
And live like this,
We can't love like this.
The only answer is
We gotta give this world back to God."
---and ouch! I became super-convicted. I mean, how many times lately have I rolled my eyes and muttered, "All those hysterical morons in the streets need to go home and get a clue."? And I've said more. Much more.
Reba sang on and I realized I'd become annoyed/frustrated/mad and dismissive of those folks rather than loving them and caring as God does about their concerns.
Frankly, somewhere inside my head I'd placed millions of people into the Oh-Just-Shut-Up file box. Oh dear. Gulp.
But, yes! We are all still worth saving. Jesus did die for everybody--and I know that, of course. Yet I'd allowed my Frustration Levels to grow taller than my Love Levels.
Uh-oh.
More? Suddenly I experienced some of the pain God must feel while watching chaotic masses arguing, friendships imploding, threats being hurled at our President, people assuming only the worst and not listening to reason.
It all must break His heart.
How vital that we trust God knows what He's doing! That we remember He's had a mega plan for, like, forever. And that we not panic when His ways aren't like ours, but rather, that we let our faith shine like bright peace, which comes from knowing, personally, the One who's still got the world in His hands, after all.
"Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people." ... from Ephesians 6
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And because this is the middle of winter, here are some yard photos (for hope and inspiration) of a local house for sale. The house looks similar to mine, but has just 1 bedroom(!) I like the low wall around the porch and I have this thing for brick walkways ----
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Busted!!! You're so right. I needed this post today too. Thank you for your wise words Deborah. And those house pictures are just what I need in the middle of the white winter here in snowy Spokane. I would love a smaller older house like this.
ReplyDeleteBlessings, Betsy
Reba's song, Back to God, says it all. It's a wake-up call to all of us. I played it for hubby as he ate his breakfast this morning, and he said, "people are gonna identify with that!" I sure hope so! Thanks for sharing it with us. Now I have to tell my daughter about it...that's how we change the world...one person at a time. It can happen!!
ReplyDeleteit all spills over into Canada as well ... and yes, i'm busted too ... tho' i try to be quite still about my opinions ... and i keep praying for that annoyance to go away ... as i keep giving my heart to the Lord to fix ... good post, dear Deborah ... i pray it is read by many... in Jesus name ...
ReplyDeleteYikes ... I'm totally busted as well and want to thank you for sharing the song with us. I'm going to copy and paste your entire post here and email it to myself so I'll have it when I need to read it again [and yes, I'm pretty sure I'll end up needing to read it more than once.]
ReplyDeleteHave a good day!
Deb
P.S. I used to get your blog posts a looong [yep, I intentionally spelled it with too many o's to emphasize that it's been quite awhile]. Anyways, I had copied and emailed and saved quite a few of your blog posts that were so good I knew I'd want to re-read them.
By coming across them is how I found you again [at the time I had un-subbed due to being overwhelmed with tons of blog posts to read and too many emails backed up, etc.] Anyways - so happy that I found you again, I'm sure while not being subbed to you, I've missed out on a tremendous amount of wisdom.