You Want Mercy, HUH?

Lately in my quiet time God has been  talking to me about mercy.

The verse He used today was:
Hos 10:12  Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy;
break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, 
till he come and rain righteousness upon you. 

The first part of the verse says to "reap in mercy". If you want to reap mercy,
you must first plant mercy. That does not mean that you let people run over you.
It  means that you show mercy to those that need it (or don't deserve it).
So many time we can get bent out of shape if someone wrongs us. Perhaps we
do not see the whole picture. We do not know what they are going through.
Try to put yourself in their shoes. Look at them from God's perspective. 
Maybe they have just had some terrible news. Maybe things are not at
peace in their home and they are acting out by taking it out on you.

My friend and I had a long talk about mercy lately. Someone had wronged me
and I was struggling over it. She said to me, "How many times have I messed
up and you forgave me and we continued being friends? That was mercy." She 
went on to say, "If you want mercy, you must forgive and extend mercy as well
or your Father in Heaven will not forgive you." That one made me think long
and hard! I needed to forgive in order to show mercy. 

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: 
Matthew 5:7 "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy." 

The dictionary define mercy as:
1. refraining from harming or punishing offenders, enemies, etc.
2. a disposition to forgive or to be kind.
3. Kind or compassionate treatment
*(Webster's New World Dictionary, c.1972 The Southwestern Company, Nashville, TN)

Notice, it says, "blessed" are the merciful.... Jesus is saying that we are to
be blessed. How? Well, to name a few:

• We will have a clear conscience.
• We may make a former enemy become a friend.
• We will be forgiven by the Father in Heaven.
• We will reap benefits of righteousness.
• When we mess up, we will be given mercy and forgiveness.

There are so many stories of people whose have been changed by
someone offering forgiveness and mercy...the unmerited favor and 
kindness to undeserving people. 

None of us deserve God's forgiveness and mercy, yet we freely receive it
from Him. He wants us to extend mercy, too. When we do, we will be blessed.

Further in the verse, it reads " the Lord will rain down righteousness on you".
So, mercy bring forth fruits of righteousness.

Is  there someone in your life that needs mercy shown to them right now?
Grant mercy and you will be blessed beyond measure. Try it and see! 

Seek Him first, show mercy, and reap the righteous results. It is as simple as that.

Thank you for reading.  I would love to read your feedback.

Donna

It Won't Always Rain.

I have a music CD by Marci Webb in my office. She sings a
song that comes back to my mind from time to time. The song
is entitled, "It Won't Rain Always". 
I was thinking of that today when I got up and saw the sun
shining through the murk after a few long overcast, rainy, 
foggy days.

Though it seems like it sometimes that the rain will never end,
It will not always rain. God promised that when He put the
rainbow in the sky.  There will always be seasons--summer, 
winter, springtime and harvest. He promised that He would
never flood the earth again. It is a law of nature. It cannot
change, nor will it ever. Winter always  gives way to the 
brilliance of spring. 

It is the same way with life.  Life is not always dark and 
stormy. There are moments of sunshine and warmth.  
Think what would happen to us if we never had to face any
storms and always had happiness and blue skies. We would
not amount to very much. We would shrivel up quickly. 
We need wintertime in our lives. We need storms from time to
time. It makes us grow and really appreciate the sunshine even
more when we see it. 

On the flip side of this coin is how we look at life. If we see
everything as a negative, dark cloudy life then that is what we
will get. But in the midst of the storm, if we look up when everything
else surrounding us looks dark, there is the glimmer of the lining
behind the dark storm clouds. 

An old chorus comes to mind. "Behind every dark cloud shines the
smiling face of Jesus. In every dark cloud look for Him; He'll be there..."

The sun is always shining regardless of our circumstances. Above
the clouds, the blackness of night, the sun always puts forth its 
brilliance. Never changing, always steady... Just like our God.

Trusting that you will feel the warmth of the Sonshine in your life!

Thanks for reading.

Donna

Running on Empty?

My son had an embarrassing situation lately and he gave
his permission to share it with you. He learned a lesson from it
and so can we.

Let me give you a little bit of background so you understand the story. 

Sam bought a used car a few months ago. It has a lot of idiosyncrasies, one of 
which is a fuel gauge that does not work properly and a gas tank that will leak if
you fill it too full. He has to find that right level so he doesn't waste fuel and he
has to keep track of how many miles he travels so he knows when it needs fuel.
Most of the time he does fine, but there are those few occasions when he 
forgets. You can guess what happened. Yep! He ran out of gas.

It was not the only situation that he was facing at that moment. The roads were
nasty. Since we live in the country, the roads are not kept up as well as  the
county or state roads. He had to go pick up his paycheck, but it was a long, long
ways to go to get it.

You see, when he topped a hill, there was a truck stuck in the middle of the road.
He had to turn around in a drive way where he got stuck! Finally he got out, but
his car stalled and would not start no matter how hard he tried. So, he called for
his dad to come and help him.  

Long story short, it took 3 very frustrating and tense hours for his dad to push him
home. After struggling for a long time to get it into the driveway, the neighbor came 
over with his tractor and pushed his car into the driveway. 

After the neighbor left, my husband tried to start the car without success. They tried 
repeatedly to do things to get it started...and nothing worked. They began replacing
parts, charging the battery, and whatever else mechanics do, but the car still refused to start. They were baffled. Finally, someone got the bright idea to put some gas in it and see if it would start. VOILA! It cranked right over and ran like a charm!

So, what is my point here?  In the spiritual realm, if we do not have the right amount
of fuel in our tank, we will leak out and eventually sputter and die. We have to daily make
sure that we have our tank filled with "God time". 

Just like my guys who were frustrated and tense and baffled, we will be too if we do not
have the fuel of the Spirit in our lives. We can replace all the parts we want to. We can
guess and second guess our problem, but unless we first check our fuel level and
allow God to fill us and keep us filled, we will be just wasting time.

"Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest."
 Matthew 11:28

Come to Me instead of doing it all on your own. Come to Me instead of letting everyone else tell you how to do it. Jesus has the answers that your are looking for. Just come to Him and rest. You don't have to struggle on your own strength when your fuel tank is empty. Go to Him and let Him fill you with His peace and rest. 

Thanks for reading.

Donna

Just think of stepping On Shore

This past weekend has been a bit tough for those in our church in that
we lost a saint of God just past midnight this morning. We know where
Bob went...right into the arms of Jesus. There is no doubt that is where
he is today with all of the sorrows and sadness of this world behind him.
He left it all behind and winged his way heavenward.

He left his companion of about 62 years behind. She was faithful
in  caring for him and loved him through his difficult days
when he gradually faded from this life and into the next world. 

The church body grieves with her. He was one of us. What I mean
is that Bob was part of our church. He was a member of the family of
God...one of the redeemed that is talked about in God's Word...one
whose sins were washed away and now is seeing Jesus face to face.

Although we grieve for Bob, yet we have the eternal hope that we will see
him again someday. The way the world is going, it may be sooner than we
think. 

Bob lived his life in such a way that there was no question marks left here
on earth.  That is a challenge to all of us. Make sure all question marks are
erased with the assurance to those around us. It comforts the grieving ones
to know that where he went is just beyond the veil of where we are headed.

But another thing that I wanted to add to this is that God prepared the church
last night for what we were about to face. He visited our service in an unusual
way. He settled down among us in a sweet presence and touched our hearts
with His special presence. We all knew that it was Him. It was a holy hush, so
quiet that you could hear a pin drop. It was Heaven touching earth because
God knew that our hearts needed Him to do that for us. At the same time, he
was preparing to take Bob to be with Him. 

The God of all comfort was there meeting our needs and welcoming a saint into
His arms.

Thanks for reading.
Donna

Standing in the Dark

My son, Brad experienced a car breakdown, so we had to juggle schedules

in order to accommodate his work schedule on Wednesday evening. God used

that circumstance to teach a lesson. 

Let me explain a little about it so that you will be able to understand the meaning

of what I am talking about. 

Bradley works part-time as a meat cutter/ deli worker at a local grocery store in a

nearby village. His shifts on Wednesdays are the closing shift that ends at 8:00 p.m. 

Often a police officer will come in right before the shift ends, buy a cup of coffee

and stay around while the money is counted and the store is closed up for the night.

When his vehicle is working, it is not a problem, but on this particular evening, 

we had to leave prayer meeting early so that we could pick him up when his shift

ended at 8:00 p.m. 

The temperatures were in the single digits, so I felt concerned for him because I

knew that he was alone in the dark, freezing night waiting for us to pick him up.

His cellphone battery was dead, so if something would have happened, there

was no way to call for help. 

We pulled into the parking lot 5 minutes after the store clerk left. Brad was 

standing alone in the dark shadows on the side of the building shivering in the 

chill of the arctic cold night air. However, he was not alone. Sitting in a squad 

car about 50 feet away was a policeman keeping an eye on him to make sure

he was safe.

Bradley knew that we were coming, but he didn't know the exact moment

that we would arrive. He knew that the policeman was there for him, but he had

to stand in the darkness alone.

So, how does this incident apply to us and what lessons can be learned?

Sometimes we are like Bradley standing alone in the darkness.

• We know that God promised that He would take care of us. 
• We know that the answer is on the way. 
• We know that beyond the darkness of the veiled earth is our safety.
• Our guard who will not let anything happen to us without His knowledge. 

However, Bradley had to trust that we would keep our word and that the policeman

would do his job....just like we do with God.  We endure the darkness and coldness

of this earth because help is on the way and we are promised Heaven and home 

forever. 

Just some thoughts to think about.

Thanks for reading.

Donna

Today is the second day of January 2013. After all of the whirl of
holiday activities is behind us. It is nice to sit back for a few minutes and
take a breather before we attack the laundry, piles of dishes, etc.

When I look back on 2012, I wonder how we ever made it through it.
There were tragedies that we faced, difficulties on a daily basis, so it 
seemed. However, we survived it and are here to tell the story through
God's grace.

One lesson that God has been teaching me this past year is to trust
Him. That is much harder than it sounds. So many circumstances came
our way as a family and it seemed that our boat was about to sink. Then
the Master of the storm stepped on our behalf in marvelous ways, showing
Himself to be who He really is, The Awesome and Mighty God!

I am reminded of the passage in Mark when the disciples were in the 
boat with Jesus. They were scared silly, but they didn't need to be. Jesus
was right there with them. 

Mark 4:37-39

37.  And there arose a great storm of wind,
and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. 
38.  And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep
on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, 
carest thou not that we perish? 
39.  And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto
the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was
a great calm. 

We do not have to be afraid of anything in 2013. Jesus is in the
boat with us and He is saying, "Peace be still..."

Now there are some encouraging thoughts.

Donna

Happy New Year!

We are beginning a brand new year filled with adventure, danger,
and excitement. We can look at it with fear and trembling or
rest in the blessed hope that only Christ gives.

The last year, 2012 is behind us. For our family, we saw a lot of sad times,
intense moments, harried times, but we also had moments of
laughter and happiness and made some wonderful memories.
A friend once told me that life is what you make it to be. If you want to be
sad and lonely, then that is your choice. If you want to be happy, it is a choice
that you make. Every moment is a choice. When we choose to follow Christ
we can be assured of true happiness in spite of the circumstances.

But what about things that happen beyond our control?

• Tragedies happen to everyone.
• Death snatches our loved ones and we mourn for their loss.
• Job security is a thing of the past.
• Unexpected things happen that drains the checking account faster than you can blink an eye.
• I am sure you could add to this list of things that happened already.

Remember Who is in control here. God is never taken by surprise.
He knew what was going to happen before it takes place. He will not allow
anything to come into your life without His knowledge. He knows
how much we can take and He will not allow things to totally break us.
Sometimes we may think we cannot take any more, but through the
difficulties, we can see His hand in the worst of situations. It doesn't
matter what your struggle is, He has your eternal good in mind.

Sometimes we do not understand what God is doing in our lives.
We cannot see through the veil of darkness.  Beyond that veil that
is so dark lies Paradise! Paradise-- where God dwells--- will be our final
resting place, not the cold, damp, dusty earth here below.

One day, I was talking to God in my quiet time with Him. Let me share
a portion of what He said in my prayer journal.

"Every trial that you win becomes like a diamond and glistens in the noonday sun.
When you look back, you will see where those diamonds are. Your pathway is strewn
with diamonds of victories. The tears that you have shed for others glisten like the
dewdrops on roses in the early morning sunlight. Every prayer that you have prayed
for others shows beauty beyond compare. Every kind deed that you have done shows
splendor and beauty beyond compare. I take the mundane, difficult things in your
life and turn them into beauty. But all of this does not happen unless you patiently
go through the trials and tests that I send your way to strengthen you. 

When you feel discouraged, look back at the pathway that I see...strewn with
diamonds and other costly gems bordered by beautiful roses and flowers beyond description.

Yes, life is hard for the believer, but don't look at it that way. Look for the beauty
that I am creating in you. 
Your path of endurance glitters in the noonday sun so that others may see it and
 find their way to where I am. 
I am where you will be one day... I have prepared a place beyond your wildest dreams.
So, endure! I will be with you and deliver you when you call on Me. Trust brings results...wonderful results for all eternity! " 


So whatever happens in 2013 will prepare us for Paradise forever!


Happy New Year!