Tag: God

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Christian Blog

Wakey Wake, Cupcake

It used to annoy me when my laptop kept telling me it needed a software update or virus scan or some other preventative maintenance. Ask me later, I clicked on the screen: “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

But then, the inevitable happened. I got a computer virus that wiped out my entire hard drive. Important documents and hundreds of pictures, which I’d failed to back up, vanished in an instant.

Needless to say, I now keep my computer healthy with regular updates and scans.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Socrates

Our wise friend from ancient Greece challenges us to scan our lives for purpose and meaning, or risk losing everything. But King David of ancient Israel has a better idea: ask God to do it.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Psalm 139:23-24 (NIV)

After all, heart surgery is best left to the professional.

Kind reader, like me, are you sometimes too busy for a life scan? Well, let’s not do that anymore. Agreed?

A closing haiku:

Do not say, “I can’t”

When you really mean, “I won’t”

Wakey wake, cupcake.

Regular David (me)

Thank you for reading. 🙏❤️

This post first appeared here on June 5, 2019.

Photo by Andras Vas on Unsplash

Categories
Christian Blog grace

He Gives More Grace

This past week at summer school, a first grader, I’ll call him Chris, read a book to me. Chris is working hard to learn his consonant blends and diagraphs. The hi-lighted word is an example.

When Chris sees the “sh” that starts the word shape, he’s still learning to put the sound of s and h together—-shh. The story of Bucky the Beaver is filled with blends and diagraphs. There are five more on this page alone. Can you find them?

Here’s the thing, Chris has already completed the first grade; he should have a pretty good grasp of these concepts by now. But he’s not quite there. Thankfully, summer school is a great opportunity for remedial learning.

Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation

2 Peter 3:15a (NIV)

As I listened to my young friend read, helping him here and there, it reminded me of how patient God is with each of us. Frankly, I should have a pretty good grasp of Christian concepts by now. But I’m not quite there.

He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

2 Peter 3:9b (NIV)

Kind reader, since God is so patient with us, we would do well to be patient with each other. Many of us aren’t “quite there,” after all. Today, and every day, may we give more grace —just like the Lord.

If you, O Lord, keep a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.

Psalm 130:3 (NIV)

Thank you for reading. 🙏❤️

Categories
Christian Blog Hope

One Firefly Night

Last night, just after dusk, I sat on the back porch taking in the sounds of nature. There were a few crickets and some bird who didn’t know not to sing after sun down. It was all garden variety, until my eye caught a green blink…blink…blink. A firefly!

Hyper-focused, I tried to guess where the micro flash would come next. Over by the storage shed, near the silhouette of a tree, surely this little guy has company!

But there was only one. A single firefly blinked a few times. And then it was gone.

A one firefly night.

It happened so fast, I didn’t get the chance to share it with anyone. I ran inside to tell my wife, “Sweetheart, I just saw a firefly. ONE firefly! I think I’ll name him Frosty.”

“Frosty?”, she said.

“Yes, after Robert Frost. You know, the poet who wrote, Nothing Gold Can Stay?

I then quoted, unprompted, one of my favorite poems:

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost

A single lightning bug–arguably, the most beautiful but fragile of God’s creatures, lives in the words of a famous poet, but also in the heart’s cry of Psalm 43.

Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.

Psalm 43:5

Nothing Gold Can Stay.

The scripture, the poem, and the firefly: each say life is GUARANTEED to change. It’s beyond our total control; all one can do is prepare for the inevitable.

Depressing? Perhaps. The free acceptance of an unknown future CAN be.

But you and I know who holds the future.

Put your hope in God; for I will yet praise Him.

This post first appeared on my blog in June of 2019. But, would you believe, the same thing happened the other night?! One firefly appeared in my back yard, blinked a time or two, and then was gone.