Hello Friends!
On this beautiful warm Saturday I am pondering relationships. God has created us for relationships with Him, Jesus, Holy Spirit and others. God really wants a close relationship with His kids. He beckons us through His Word, through His whispers, through His endless love. In any healthy relationship, we talk and we listen. We love and we receive love. We give and we receive. This is what God wants.......for us with Him.
In our skin on skin relationships we practice all the above...and one more important one? We forgive and we are forgiven. We are responsible for doing life really well together within our families, our friends, our community, and the world at large. How we treat the clerk at the store, the person driving the car next to us, those who look different than us, the one who shares our bed, the people in our home, our church, impacts all and it impacts our relationship with God. Big time.
I started writing down thoughts about relationships yesterday morning and then last night we had friends over to break bread and fellowship together. Always beautiful. Always insightful. This morning I realized that this couple really practices what I was writing above. They desire and seek a close relationship with God and they intentionally "work" at relationships within the church and community. They do life well, seeing the best in each other and other people, expecting miracles, and "pitching their tent in the land of hope". They are 10 years younger than us but I "want to be like them when I grow up".
This week brought the death of two more police officers in the Des Moines IA area. Our son wears the uniform there and it hit close to home as I wrote about HERE. How the storms hit as the officers did their jobs while stunned by the death of a family member. And what hurts our son hurts us and what hurts our officers hurts us all. What hurts each person hurts the world. We stop the hurt when we reach out and embrace another in respect and love.
I confess that Joel and I have had to work hard at keeping our tent pitched in the land of hope this past year. At times the winds have blown hard, weapons have formed against us, and the good soil where we have pitched our tent has turned to sand.. Or so it seems. So where do we turn when things get so darn complicated or our dreams disintegrate. Where do we turn when confusion reigns and our tent is shaking, threatened to be swept away in the storms.
We turn our faces upward. We turn our face and our focus on that One who gave us the land of hope through the Sacrifice. Jesus. We don't close our eyes to God's promises. We shelter right in under His wings knowing God is right by our side. Nothing can shake us. Well, as humans we may feel shaken, true.....but we, like David seek God's calming presence. We seek more of a relationship with God ~ seeing Him before us at all times.
We need God and He loves having a relationship with us. We need family. We need friends. We need our neighbors, our community, our police, our state, our country, our world. We need to reach out and touch the One and the ones who we know and don't know. We help others keep their "tents" from landing in hopelessness. We love on each other and open our hearts to be loved, to understand. To do life, well like our dear friends. And most importantly we remember with God beside us we cannot be shaken. We will not be shaken. For we have pitched our tent in the land of Hope.
I started writing down thoughts about relationships yesterday morning and then last night we had friends over to break bread and fellowship together. Always beautiful. Always insightful. This morning I realized that this couple really practices what I was writing above. They desire and seek a close relationship with God and they intentionally "work" at relationships within the church and community. They do life well, seeing the best in each other and other people, expecting miracles, and "pitching their tent in the land of hope". They are 10 years younger than us but I "want to be like them when I grow up".
"I saw God before me
all the time.
Nothing can shake me;
He's right by my side.
I'm glad from the inside out, ecstatic;
I have pitched my tent in the land of hope."
Acts 2:26
Psalm 16
The Message
This week brought the death of two more police officers in the Des Moines IA area. Our son wears the uniform there and it hit close to home as I wrote about HERE. How the storms hit as the officers did their jobs while stunned by the death of a family member. And what hurts our son hurts us and what hurts our officers hurts us all. What hurts each person hurts the world. We stop the hurt when we reach out and embrace another in respect and love.
I confess that Joel and I have had to work hard at keeping our tent pitched in the land of hope this past year. At times the winds have blown hard, weapons have formed against us, and the good soil where we have pitched our tent has turned to sand.. Or so it seems. So where do we turn when things get so darn complicated or our dreams disintegrate. Where do we turn when confusion reigns and our tent is shaking, threatened to be swept away in the storms.
We turn our faces upward. We turn our face and our focus on that One who gave us the land of hope through the Sacrifice. Jesus. We don't close our eyes to God's promises. We shelter right in under His wings knowing God is right by our side. Nothing can shake us. Well, as humans we may feel shaken, true.....but we, like David seek God's calming presence. We seek more of a relationship with God ~ seeing Him before us at all times.
We need God and He loves having a relationship with us. We need family. We need friends. We need our neighbors, our community, our police, our state, our country, our world. We need to reach out and touch the One and the ones who we know and don't know. We help others keep their "tents" from landing in hopelessness. We love on each other and open our hearts to be loved, to understand. To do life, well like our dear friends. And most importantly we remember with God beside us we cannot be shaken. We will not be shaken. For we have pitched our tent in the land of Hope.
2 comments:
I usually get to read blogs at night and this week I haven't. Your kind and perfectly timed comment on my blog led me here today...you have no idea how I needed to read this. And coming to your site was not an accident. Your "scribbles" helped me look to my hope.
Hello Anita.......Glad to be of help friend...although we know it is not us, it is God.
Hugs
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