Star-fish

     My few years as a piano student under my grandmother's tutelage allowed me to know a little bit about musical notes. This morning, as I started my day with the Lord, my worries began to flood my thoughts. I know this is strange, but when things are going well, I begin to worry. You ask, "About what?" About when things won't be going well! It's crazy, I know!      An analogy came to mind of music and how unless you have high notes and low notes, there is no song. If all the notes were high, the music would begin to sound frenetic. If all the notes were low or in minor keys, the music would sound like a funeral dirge. Music and life must have both highs and lows for us to appreciate the contrast of each. Without both highs and lows, there would be no harmony or melody to music or to life. Ecclesiastes 7:14 When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider this: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, no one can discove...

     I've started a personal Bible study using the Beth Moore, Whispers of Hope 10 Weeks of Devotional Prayer book. Day Four on page 14 speaks to the idea of rebellion. Moore notes that we often see rebellion in the Christian life as "drugs, a season of infidelity, or a complete apostasy," when "the biblical definition is simply refusing God's counsel."      Simple rebellion seems like an oxymoron yet Satan is the great deceiver and would like nothing more than to fool us into thinking rebellion against God was something other people do, not us. In the following excerpt she explains her thinking on this matter: If we continue to seek answers elsewhere and do not take God's Word seriously, we are in a state of rebellion…In early adulthood my heart needed healing. I knew God. I served Him, but I ached for release--YET I never considered His Word as a cure for my illness. Fortunately, in my growing desire to please the Father, I realized I did not harbor ...

     Before rising this morning I had a "talk" with God. As I lie in bed pondering the day, I asked the Lord about His Will and how it's possible to know it. My thoughts went to a bowling alley (of all places, since I rarely bowl). But the picture was of a lane that had the bumpers up which keep the ball from going into the gutter. Bumpers are used when little kids are playing and haven't learned how to control their bowling balls. It keeps them out of the gutters and allows the player to have more success.      The following thought was that as a believer in Jesus Christ, God puts the "bumpers" up for my path in life. Although I can certainly choose my own errant ways, for the most part, if I am aiming down the center of life wanting to be in God's will, but occasionally throwing "gutter balls," I am in His will. He ultimately is in control and will only let me weave to a certain degree off course, unless I am willfully choosing to be out fro...

      As 2013 ends, the news, the magazines, and all of society seem to look back over the past year and reminisce about events that have occurred. As I read the local newspaper's year-in-review, the memories were not of pleasant stories, but of murders, fires, and other devastating occurrences.       I do the same when I look back on my past, the memories that usually surface are the regrets, the sins, and the mistakes. Recently, God reminded me that if I keep one foot in the past and one in the present, my walk with Him into the future will be crooked, if not impossible to achieve.      On Facebook today, a friend posted the following anonymous quote, "Don't look back, you're not going that way." Two scriptures speak to this issue of looking back at our past lives: Philippians 3:13-14, But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind  and straining toward what is ahead,   14  I press on  toward the goal to win the...