Saturday, April 6, 2013

Giving Thanks On A Different Path


I love wildflowers and birds, especially when I have a camera and the right lens to capture them. We had planned a short hike for today as the last activity with our Webelos II Scouts before they bridged to Boy Scouts later this month. Yet as we watched the weather forecasts the hike became somewhat questionable. When I woke up this morning the sun was shining with a slight drizzle every now and then. So we met for our hike and had a really nice time. There were banana slugs for the boys and flowers for me. There was the joy of watching the three of them have fun and the enjoyment of conversation with the other dads. It would have been so easy to let the weather serve as a reason for cancelling the day, and then all of this would have been missed.

So it is with life, sometimes we can look at the barriers or challenges and allow them to become insurmountable walls giving us cause to not move forward or to go another direction. It may be that these times are really not as much God diverting us as much as they are saying trust me as you go forward with My plans and be thankful for what I unfold. It may not be what you had desired, but God knows so much more what we need and He is working in and through all that is laid before us.

On the hike today we enjoyed the flowers. I got a taste of what it might look like there in a few more weeks, and having gone today I am ready to go again.

Today in “Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young (4/6)

Bring me the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Take nothing for granted, not even the rising of the sun. Before Satan tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, thankfulness was as natural as breathing. Satan’s temptation involved pointing Eve to the one thing that was forbidden her. The garden will filled with luscious, desirable fruits, but Eve focused on one fruit she couldn’t have rather than being thankful for the many things freely available. This negative focus darkened her mind, and she succumbed to temptation.

When you focus on what you don’t have or on situations that displease you, your mind also becomes darkened. You take for granted life, salvation, sunshine, flowers, and countless other gifts from Me. You look for what is wrong and refuse to enjoy life until that is “fixed.”

When you approach Me with thanksgiving, the Light of My Presence pours into you, transforming you through and through. Walk in the Light with Me by practicing the discipline of thanksgiving.

I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord. Psalm 116:17 (NKJV)

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will surely not die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some of it and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Genesis 3:2-6

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 1 John 1:7

No comments: