Devotion Sept 12, 2018
12/09/18 16:28
Greetings!
I took the month of August off from these devotions. It was pretty flattering the number of people who said, “Where is our devotions?”. But you know after doing these for 12+ years the brain just needed a break. Not that my brain does much work with the devotions as I have said previously God does most of the work and just uses my fingers to do the typing - but even with that there is a certain about of brain draining that happens and with all things the drained brain needs a little refreshing! So I took off the month of August to see if there could be restored any of the dried out brain cells! Let's hope it worked!
Seems amazing to me that it was 12+ years ago when all this started. God had been after me for over a year to quit my job because ‘he knew the plans he had for me’ even though I didn’t. It is a scary thing quitting a job when there is nothing in your immediate future but eventually I did quit because God had beaten on me enough until I finally did it…. What a strange time that was. I had been working 3 different jobs for so many years that when I quit the main one and the other one had fizzled out and now I was left with the 2 churches I served - well, there was a time void that was disconcerting to say the least.
I remember that first morning I was alone and I had no where to go and I looked at my dog and said, “What are we going to do now?” and the dog looked back at me with his big brown eyes as if to say, “I don’t know but whatever you do I’ll do it with you!” So the two of us got into such a routine that the dog was leading the way each day. And in fact if there was a day where there was a deviation the dog was really upset.
Since all I had left was the 2 churches - my husband was working out of town, my kids had all flown the coop and it was just me and the dog and probably a cat because there always seemed to be a cat….. and I tried to think what I could do for the churches that might fill up this void of time because I was quite fearful of turning on the TV and watching Law & Order all day….
So I decided the churches needed some communication from me - every day. Each morning after breakfast I would get a cup of coffee (eventually I put a coffee pot in my office so it was just a cup I took up with me) and the dog would lead me upstairs to my office. I had a great office. It was on the second floor of our house and it was an old sun room so three walls were all windows and it was just a bright cheery room and I could procrastinate by looking out over the trees and at the cars who went by on the street behind our house!
Every morning I would sit down at the computer and the dog would sit at my feet and everyone was quite content. But now I had to figure out what type of communication I was going to send to the people of my churches…. I came up with some kind of scheme of what to send each day and now I’m not sure what they all were although I do remember that Monday morning was some type of churchy joke and then on Wednesday came the “Midweek Devotion”. None of the other days worth of whatever it was I was sending stuck but the devotion did and here we are a plethora of years later and it is still coming - except for August of this year - and I have every confidence that if it is God’s desire then they will continue to come and I will continue to sit down each Wednesday morning and say, “OK God, what is it today?” and God will say, “Remember on Saturday when you…..” and I will say, “Oh yea!” and I will begin to type and voila there it will be!
I guess the couple lessons here are to remember that God allows us to take breaks every now and then. In fact, God encourages us to take breaks every now and then. That old adage, “Don’t work or you don’t eat” gets a little too overly used, or maybe misused, to make us think that we have to busy every moment of every day….. God never intended that and we see evidence through scripture of God having people rest.
But also the lesson is a constant reminder of God’s provision for our lives and I remember that terrifying moment of quitting my job and leaving the building with all my stuff and having a panic attack in the parking lot because I was convinced I and my family were going to starve to death……
If you are obedient to God and you listen to God’s direction, God already has everything worked out and you just have to trust. It was certainly true for me!
Amen!
I took the month of August off from these devotions. It was pretty flattering the number of people who said, “Where is our devotions?”. But you know after doing these for 12+ years the brain just needed a break. Not that my brain does much work with the devotions as I have said previously God does most of the work and just uses my fingers to do the typing - but even with that there is a certain about of brain draining that happens and with all things the drained brain needs a little refreshing! So I took off the month of August to see if there could be restored any of the dried out brain cells! Let's hope it worked!
Seems amazing to me that it was 12+ years ago when all this started. God had been after me for over a year to quit my job because ‘he knew the plans he had for me’ even though I didn’t. It is a scary thing quitting a job when there is nothing in your immediate future but eventually I did quit because God had beaten on me enough until I finally did it…. What a strange time that was. I had been working 3 different jobs for so many years that when I quit the main one and the other one had fizzled out and now I was left with the 2 churches I served - well, there was a time void that was disconcerting to say the least.
I remember that first morning I was alone and I had no where to go and I looked at my dog and said, “What are we going to do now?” and the dog looked back at me with his big brown eyes as if to say, “I don’t know but whatever you do I’ll do it with you!” So the two of us got into such a routine that the dog was leading the way each day. And in fact if there was a day where there was a deviation the dog was really upset.
Since all I had left was the 2 churches - my husband was working out of town, my kids had all flown the coop and it was just me and the dog and probably a cat because there always seemed to be a cat….. and I tried to think what I could do for the churches that might fill up this void of time because I was quite fearful of turning on the TV and watching Law & Order all day….
So I decided the churches needed some communication from me - every day. Each morning after breakfast I would get a cup of coffee (eventually I put a coffee pot in my office so it was just a cup I took up with me) and the dog would lead me upstairs to my office. I had a great office. It was on the second floor of our house and it was an old sun room so three walls were all windows and it was just a bright cheery room and I could procrastinate by looking out over the trees and at the cars who went by on the street behind our house!
Every morning I would sit down at the computer and the dog would sit at my feet and everyone was quite content. But now I had to figure out what type of communication I was going to send to the people of my churches…. I came up with some kind of scheme of what to send each day and now I’m not sure what they all were although I do remember that Monday morning was some type of churchy joke and then on Wednesday came the “Midweek Devotion”. None of the other days worth of whatever it was I was sending stuck but the devotion did and here we are a plethora of years later and it is still coming - except for August of this year - and I have every confidence that if it is God’s desire then they will continue to come and I will continue to sit down each Wednesday morning and say, “OK God, what is it today?” and God will say, “Remember on Saturday when you…..” and I will say, “Oh yea!” and I will begin to type and voila there it will be!
I guess the couple lessons here are to remember that God allows us to take breaks every now and then. In fact, God encourages us to take breaks every now and then. That old adage, “Don’t work or you don’t eat” gets a little too overly used, or maybe misused, to make us think that we have to busy every moment of every day….. God never intended that and we see evidence through scripture of God having people rest.
But also the lesson is a constant reminder of God’s provision for our lives and I remember that terrifying moment of quitting my job and leaving the building with all my stuff and having a panic attack in the parking lot because I was convinced I and my family were going to starve to death……
If you are obedient to God and you listen to God’s direction, God already has everything worked out and you just have to trust. It was certainly true for me!
Amen!