This week I went for a bushwalk with a very special friend of mine. It was about an hour of strolling in our gumboots over 40 acres looking at the scenery, checking the water levels, catching glimpses of wildlife, removing fallen branches from the horse trails and … pulling weeds. In the middle of the bush.
I didn’t realise this was a necessary part of living in the bush, but apparently the best way to keep the land healthy and free from being overgrown, is to keep on top of the weeds as they sprout up.
My bushwalking friend had a keen eye for plants and knew that those pretty little flowers would grow up and end up killing all the native vegetation that we were currently enjoying, making it uninhabitable.
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Like most writers, I am a lover of words and phrases. Thesaurus.Com is my number one writing buddy. A breeze of giddiness embosoms me whenever I search for the origins of common sayings such as, “It’s raining cats and dogs.â€
Despite my desire to master the English language, I still confuse some words now and again. For example, I often look up affect vs. effect. Stationary and stationery puzzle me at times, as do complement and compliment. Most recently, the word righteousness invoked many sighs as I dug deeper into studying “The Armor of God”, referenced in the book of Ephesians.
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God reveals Himself to us through everyday life events. I’m a firm believer in this. When our hearts and minds focus on Him and we ask God to show Himself, He does.
I had one of those moments not long ago when sitting in the car line waiting to pick up my daughter from preschool. A double car line forms along the edge of the church’s large parking lot. On this particular day, the usually empty lot contained a single car parked in the very center. Of all the available spaces, this person parked right beside a trash barrel.
While I watched, the person cranked their car and backed out of the space.
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Just a little note to all of you to say thank you for making our first week “back” a great one! We have a great team of writers who have joined us and we truly hope you are blessed each day!
This week we added two new regular contributors. Donna’s first regular devotional was featured on Tuesday and Staci’s first devotional is tomorrow. You can read about each of our writers on our Who We Are pages.
If you are not currently a subscriber, but you would like to be, we now have a convenient link available at the top of the site.
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Fear. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like it. I don’t like the feelings of hesitation and dread that come with it, either.
Yet even if we don’t like being fearful, there are things in life that are going to make us scared.
We might fear for our kids’ safety. Or our health. Or we might simply fear doing something because we don’t want to fail. But regardless of what we’re scared of, with God in our lives, our fears can be much less.
The apostle Paul talks about this in 2 Timothy 1:7, saying,
“God has not given us a spirit of fear, but rather a spirit of power and of love…”
In fact, there are tons of verses in the Bible about fear.
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All too often I take my Christianity for granted. Having grown up knowing Him all my life, it is easy to become complacent.
As a teen I found that many peers referred to Christianity as having a lot of rules and restrictions. Even as an adult it isn’t entirely unusual to hear others state that Christians simply can’t have fun.
I however, see life as a Christian very differently.
“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1)
Christianity for me is freedom. I’m so content when walking with Christ!
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Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist…Ephesians 6:13-14
I remember the first time I read the above verses. I sat on an old red velvet cushioned wooden pew at my neighbor’s church during Vacation Bible School. Attentive, I watched as other children displayed decorative cardboard garments to demonstrate the armor of God. When explaining truth, the teacher told us that it meant to never lie and to also know that God’s word is true.
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Today, something exciting happened… I got 200 in Ten Pin Bowling! That was one of the goals I set at the start of the year. I have some other goals still pending but I think taking a photo of a soaring eagle and writing a book will take a bit longer to achieve.
Do you know what your goals are in life? When you look back on your life, the events that will stand out the most are not the times you were involved in the most ministries, or successful at work, or excelling at study, or had the most well behaved children, but it is the moments that you took time out from the busyness of life and decided to do something different.
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