I had lunch with a number of ladies a few weeks ago. It was nice to see faces that I wouldn't normally see during the week and it was a time to just share and encourage one another. Some laughed who needed to laugh, some just needed reminder that they are loved and cared for. It was good (incidentally we have made it a Wed. tradition). I opted to walk the 3 miles home after lunch which I was entirely unprepared for. It was HOT out and I didn't have my sneakers on...I had on very flat leather sandals. Despite the not so great planning on my part...it seemed like a really intentional way to commune with God in prayer, in scripture and in taking in his scenic creation along the way. It was a connective, refreshing time indeed. God met me in multiple ways as we walked together and I was comforted deeply. I read from 1 Peter Chapter one as I started my trek home. I paused, meditated, asked the Spirit to speak it into me and unearth anything that needed his light shined upon. It was good. It was necessary and because it was was just that...any sacrifice forsaking comfort was my pleasure, my joy! As I was walking along, I stopped providentially in front of an open field. It was covered in wild flowers and tall grass encroaching onto the sidewalk as if to notify the tamed and subdued of it's feral presence. How befitting was it to come upon this field and arrive to verses 23-24? "For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever." We're on this earth but a brief time yet the imprint that we leave behind has Kingdom effects that we must give account for one day.
Isn't it baffling to think that we are the very conduits, the very vessels for God's sovereign plan? "Why choose me Lord?" I so often ask. Yet we are set on a course that God has predetermined. He knows our deepest desires, our needs. He knows what will sustain us and what is good for us. "In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His Glory" (Ephesians 1:11-12). As I continued on my quest home I was desperate for a little reprieve from the sun so I found some welcome shade underneath a tree. As I opened my supplemental reading I came across one of God's Promises to me in Psalm 84:11 "For the LORD GOD is a sun and shield; the LORD will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly." It was sweet to the very core of me. Our God is never far...he is close to my heart, he resides in my spirit and it is well in my soul. May your time with the Lord be rich and abundant! May you always break through the doldrums of a routine that is even tempted to be void of communing with our Lord!
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