...the offer of a holiday at sea. -C. S. Lewis

...being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of His holy people in the kingdom of light. Colossians 1:11-12

Jesus did love a man who was able, sometimes, to be reckless. He did not care for the rulers as a class, but when one of them forgot his dignity, and ran after a peasant teacher and fell on the road at His feet, we read that ‘Jesus, seeing him, loved him.’ He saw a widow flinging into the treasury all she had, which no doubt was a very foolish action, but it stirred His heart with gladness to see somebody venturing herself simply upon God. He wanted life in men, energy, impulse; and in His Church He has often found nothing but a certain tame decorum, of which even He can make little.   -W. M. Macgregor

Dear Father in heaven, we thank you. We want to be ready to thank You at all times. We look forward with joy to your kingdom and await the redemption that will free us to the very depth of our being, to the praise and thanks and honor of Your name. Be with the many people who come hungering and thirsting to You. Bring deliverance to those whose hearts are true, and let them know that the power of Your kingdom is truly present here on earth in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

It is so easy to get sucked into the tit for tat all in the name of prudence and “fairness.” But the great sucking noise is actually the joy and thankfulness being sucked out of my soul. I know I hear again and again a corrective admonition when I shrug my shoulders with a “It doesn’t really matter,” but in the quiet of the morning, when I cry out to My Lord, and settle into His bosom, when surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child with his mother, Like a weaned child is my soul within me, it has nothing to do with tight arguments lined up with signed documents and chronological receipts clipped together, and has everything to do with His grace and His sufficiency.

It doesn’t really matter.

There is no satisfaction in this world. Again and again and again, this is His word about the lilies of the valley and our days are like the grass, when the wind goes over it, it is gone.  Why would I ever want to build storage sheds to fill with cobwebs and rust?

And yet those who are planted in the house of The LORD will flourish.

Blessed.

May I hunger and thirst for His righteousness,

For then I shall be filled.

May I be merciful,

That I may receive His mercy,

Forgive and I shall be forgiven,

Give and it will be given to me,

Heaping and overflowing,

Poured into my lap.

And truly all that I long for is to bring a smile to My Lord’s lips.

May I stir His heart with gladness.

To be free to the very depths of my being,

To the praise and thanks and honor of His name,

For He is good.