Tag Archives: peace

What Might Happen

Leave a reply

A friend’s dog is staying with us.  Another French Bull dog. He is a good looking brindle with brown eyes and a face that you have to love. Carl has been tolerating the invasion of another male bully but there are rules that we must all follow. The most important one is that Carl gets the maximum amount of attention, no matter the circumstances.

This is being lived out as I write this. Leo has begun to bark at Carl and a staring contest is going on right behind my chair. Carl doesn’t want Leo to receive the attention that he believes belongs only to him.

A couple of minutes ago, I had Carl in my lap and was stroking his back as Leo slipped beside the chair. What happened next is so typical of my little dog. Carl began to show his dismay by growling under his breath. Here he was, in his favorite spot in the whole world, and he couldn’t enjoy it because of his obsessive thoughts about what might happen.

How often do we get sucked into thinking about all the things that might happen and disregard the pleasantries of the present? We can be enjoying a beautiful fall day without too many worries, and a thought about the future pops into our brain and takes over. Instead of sending the thought on its way, we allow the thought to make its home in our heads.

As I cruised through the Bible to find verses that can help us, I was amazed at how many verses addressed worry or thinking about things we need to stay away from. Proverbs 55:22 states, “Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.”

So instead of worrying about situations that we don’t have control over, go to God in prayer. And when we pray, start with thanking Him for the power He possesses to overcome any and all situations that we may be worried about.

It is too bad that Carl doesn’t understand how to pray and move beyond the worries that have consumed him. Instead he converts over to the piercing howl that I have grown to know as his way of drawing more attention his way.

IMG_2212

Carl’s New Normal

Leave a reply

I haven’t seen Carl in days and can only wonder how he is adjusting to his new family. It is strange not to have my four legged friend looking up at me with his soft brown eyes and scratching my leg so that I will reach down and give him the attention that he desires. I can’t help but think about how he is handling this drastic change in his life.

Drastic changes. Ones that we can’t predict and have no control over. There are many people in Florida and Houston that have had their world transformed with no idea of how to adjust to their new normal.

New normals can either make people bitter or better. What determines this can be found within the person and not necessarily the circumstances that surround them. A great example of this can be found in Numbers 13. Moses had assigned one man from each of the Israelite tribes to go and explore the Promised Land and come back and give a report.

We should remember that these people had been abused and used by the Egyptians for years. Then God trained up Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and to bring them into a land that He had promised them through Abraham.

It would seem that these people should have trusted God after He had miraculously brought them through the Red Sea and then devoured the Egyptians. But as we all know, we can have a very short memory when we are placed in perilous situations.

So when the men came back, Only two out of twelve men had the faith to believe that God would provide them a way into the land that they had been promised.

Numbers 13: 30-31 states,” Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.”

How often do we doubt that God can get us through the times of uncertainty?

More time than we think… Just as the men couldn’t believe that God actually had a place that was better for them, we also doubt how God can get us through times of trials.

As for Carl, he has been staying with some friends that have been living in our home while we have been away on vacation. I have heard that he has been behaving himself for the most part. I guess he has been able to adapt to his new normal better than we expected.

IMG_2163

Carl and the Serpent

2 Replies

At first, I wasn’t sure what I was watching. Carl and Bee were pulling on something and neither were going to let go. The problem was the thing was a black snake that had slithered up on the porch to sun himself and didn’t realize what he had gotten himself into.

All I could do was scream. I am not sure if I was crying out for the snake or for the safety of my dogs. I couldn’t tell if the reptile was poisonous from my distance and I wasn’t going to get any closer.  So after a couple of minutes of tug a war, the dogs were no longer pulling.

It was then that I went into the screened in porch and looked over to see the remains of the snake. The head was lying on one side of the porch and the rest of the creature was lying between both dogs. Foam was seeping out of their mouths as they protected their prey.

I called my husband for advice and he told me to get the snake off the porch and throw it over the fence. Even though the snake was dead, I still didn’t want to go near it. So I recruited a neighbor to come to my rescue and discard it for me.

As he went to pick up the head, the snake opened its mouth. This absolutely creeped me out. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The mouth continued to open and close while the rest of the body slithered around five feet away. What I learned later is that this isn’t that unusual.

I couldn’t help but think about this verse as I pondered the continued movement of the snake. John 15:5-6 states, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.”

Just as the snake’s body had been removed from the head, we can also be removed from the vine. Sometimes, people may even look spiritually alive and make all the right movements, but in the end, if they don’t remain in Jesus, they are dead.

John 15:7 states how we are to remain in Jesus.  It states, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

If we stay in God’s word and it remains in us, we can ask whatever we wish and it states that it will be done for us. But we need to be careful in knowing that it may not happen immediately or even in our lifetime. And in many cases, the end result may look very different from what we have perceived it to be.

Just as the snake continued to open and close its mouth, my perception of what a dead snake looks like was definitely different from what it was in reality. As for Carl, he did suffer a battle wound on his left ear. It appears the snake must have dug in as Carl and Bee pulled him a part. But thankfully, he seems fine and ready for his next encounter with the wild.

IMG_1829

 

 

 

Living Oblivious

2 Replies

Carl was oblivious to the circumstances. He was prancing around like he was going to be chosen to go camping. On the other hand, Bee wouldn’t leave my side for fear that she would be left behind. I tried to comfort the little girl by telling her she would be the one to go but after being left in the past, she didn’t want to take a chance.

It is funny to think about the differences in the dogs’ behaviors and the assumptions that both made about what was going to happen. Carl appeared to be a little arrogant with his head held high as he pranced around. On the other hand, Bee seemed terrified of being left.

As I observed the posture that my dogs took, I couldn’t help but think about our own posture before God. Many people emulate the confidence the Pharisees portrayed regarding their final destination.  They were so prideful about knowing how to get to Heaven that they didn’t recognize the only Way to get there.

On the other hand, prostitutes, invalids, and the twelve disheveled men that Jesus selected as His disciples followed Him around for three years until it became crystal clear that this man was God’s son.

How often do we all live in a state of oblivion? Just the other day, I found Carl sleeping on the back porch directly under the sun roof. As he lay in the brightness of the sun, the light diminished his figure in the process.

The contrast of his figure made me ponder. Isn’t this how we should live so that we don’t get caught in a state of oblivion? Jesus states that He is the light of the world. John 8:12. If so, if we are living in His light, shouldn’t our figures be diminished and His enhanced?

Carl didn’t see it coming when I pranced him over to the neighbor’s house before loading Bee into the truck. He continued to appear confident and sure of himself. I almost felt sorry for him. Then it struck me. Isn’t that how we exist in our own state of oblivion, confident in ourselves without regard for God?IMG_1793

A Carl Sighting

2 Replies

There has been a Carl sighting. He was spotted hanging out the window of a big black truck. If you look close enough, it appears that he seems to be very happy with his situation.

This morning, my husband called Carl’s name as he left the house. Carl immediately jumped down from his comfy bed and followed my husband out the door to the driveway where the big black truck was parked. It didn’t take any prodding by my husband to encourage Carl to be placed on his favorite seat.

I have tried to encourage Carl to get up out of the bed on any given morning but if he isn’t ready to get up, he ignores me. On the other hand, if my husband just looks in Carl’s direction and says his name, the little fawn colored dog will show no hesitation to follow him out the door.

Why will Carl only respond to my husband and no one else? We can ask this same question of sheep and how they will only respond to the voice of their shepherd.

As I was reading John chapter 10, I was perplexed by the illustration of Jesus as he refers to himself as the shepherd and the people who follow him as his sheep. How could these curly haired animals teach me how to be a better follower of Christ?

John 10:3-5 “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”

In the same manner, if Jesus is my shepherd, I should hear his voice and follow Him. But what about all the other voices I have heard in my life and followed? In today’s world, I have been particularly distracted by the many voices screaming from my computer, television, and iphone.

Instead of allowing these devices to feed me what the world wants me to hear, I have been trying to use them to feed me what Jesus wants me to hear. Christian radio when I wake up, Bible study, and prayer will hopefully keep me in tuned to Jesus’ voice.

Carl’s response to my husband’s voice reminds me of the curly sheep that will only respond to the voice of the shepherd. So instead of getting aggravated with him, when he won’t budge when I call, I hope that it will remind me to listen intently for the voice of Jesus.

 

IMG_0822 (1)

The Waiting Room of Life

2 Replies

Carl spends a lot of his waking hours waiting. On any given day, you can find him waiting for someone to come home or for someone to put those wonderful morsels of food in his dish and lower it to the floor. No matter what he is waiting for, he doesn’t like it one bit.

The time we spend waiting is just as annoying for us humans as it is for Carl. No one likes to wait in a long line or be stuck behind an accident on the interstate. Some of us stay prepared for these unexpected times of waiting with games on our phone or glaring at Facebook to keep our mind occupied while we stay wedged in time.

It’s not the short inconveniences that cause us to scream out to the Lord. It’s the times when we want closure to a situation or a response to an unanswered prayer.  Days, weeks, months, and sometimes years can go by with no sign of an end to the waiting. How we approach these circumstances can define our relationship with God.

Hannah was one woman that had to live day after day with unanswered prayers and the endless ridicule that came with being a barren woman. To make the situation even more interesting, there is a phrase in 1 Samuel 1:6 that can cause many to struggle. “Because the Lord had closed her womb.”

Why would God close the womb of such a righteous woman? Why would He create a situation that would cause Hannah to spend years waiting for a child? And even when Hannah received confirmation from the priest that she would conceive and have a child, the Bible states in 1 Samuel 1:20 “So it came to pass in the process of time that Hannah conceived and bore a son.” Instead of an immediate response to her prayer, she had to continue to wait.

Romans 8:28 states, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” If this is true, why does God take his time in answering our prayers?

If we examine what is happening in the process of waiting, we will be able to understand God’s intent.  Isn’t it during the period before our prayers are answered that we rely more on God than ourselves?  Don’t we pray more and spend more time in the Word to try and locate what God is trying to teach us?

I am so thankful for stories like this one to encourage me when I feel the agonizing pain that comes with the unknown. If Hannah had had a baby without effort, she may never have dedicated her son Samuel to God. If she had been blessed with children, her husband Elkanah may not have had the opportunity to demonstrate his unconditional love for his wife. But most importantly, Hannah may not have sought out God and trusted in his sovereignty.

Carl continues to wait and still doesn’t understand why he has to spend so many countless minutes with his face pushed up against the screen door in hopes of the sound of footsteps. But hopefully, I will feel a little more closer to God and his will when I am left in the waiting room of life.

IMG_0096

Storms In Our Lives

Leave a reply

Carl has done it again.  His separation anxiety continues to be clearly displayed. This time, Jay’s new recliner was attacked and the chair lost.  Because Carl cannot be trusted in the house when we are away, he and Bee have been banned to the porch and back yard. If they want to come in, they can only come into the pantry where a gate closes off the rest of the house.

Another storm of life. Compared to other storms, this is minor but it is still a storm for us. And with the storm, questions about why it continues and how to get out of it rise in my mind. Why would God continue to set up storms for us?  We pray that God will take away the storms, but they keep coming. I believe the answer to this crucial question can be found in Matthew 14.

Jesus just fed the five thousand and he then makes his disciples get in a boat and travel ahead of him to the other side. After dismissing the crowds he takes the time to go up on a mountain and pray. While Jesus is praying on the mountain, a storm comes up. The waves are bashing against the boat and the disciples are feeling like they are going to die. Then what happens next is crazy. Jesus walks on the water towards the boat.

I wonder what I would have thought if I was trapped in a boat during a horrific storm and saw a man walking towards me. I am sure I would have been terrified and just wanted to close my eyes and pray that it would all go away. It is clear that these men had absolutely no control over their situation and were forced to rely on God.

Peter is the only one that demonstrates the faith needed to walk out on the water. But when he realizes his situation and takes his eyes off Jesus, he begins to doubt.  At that moment, he begins to sink and cries out to Jesus. And our savior did what he does best. He reaches down and saves Peter. Once they are back in the boat, the wind dies down.

There are a couple of events that took place here that can help us understand a little more about our Lord. First, notice that he made the disciples get in the boat even though he knew there would be a storm. In the same manner, God may create storms in our lives. Not to harm us but to encourage us to draw closer to him.

But it is what Jesus did after he made the disciples get the boat that brings me comfort. He goes to the mountain and prays. Which is what he does now when we are going through storms.  He is sitting at the right hand of God the father interceding for us as we fight off the squalls.

It only gets better here. After leaving the mountain, he comes to the disciples in the midst of their storm. He hasn’t abandoned them but draws near in the worst of times. All he asks is for us to do is to take our eyes off the storm and place them on him. Peter was able to do this for a moment but then he shifted his attention. Once he lost focus, he began to sink and cries out to Jesus.

The Bible in Matthew 14: 31 states, “Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught Peter. You of little faith, he said. Why did you doubt?” I am so thankful that Jesus is willing to reach down and pull me out of my mire during the storms of my life. All I need to do is ask and believe that he has my best interest at heart. Even when no answers can be found. I just need to trust him.

As for the storm with Carl. Jay has covered the hole with masking tape and we have been able to let go of the anger towards our little dog. This storm has helped us realize that the stuff that we own has no eternal value but forgiveness does.

IMG_1514