What if this happens, what will I do?  Does your mind ever play out possible future scenarios?  Usually, at least for me, when I let my mind wonder about the future, it isn’t positive hypothetical scenarios.  It is usually scary scenarios of “what if” this happens or that happens, how will “I,” get through it.  

Have you ever heard the saying, well, “things are going great, I just wonder when the other shoe is going to drop”?  Why are we like this?  Why do most of us look around waiting for the “other shoe to drop” instead of enjoying today?  Why are we caught up worrying about the future?  Aren’t we supposed to walk in faith?  

Jesus frequently gave it between the eyes to the religious leaders of his day.  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” He called them blind guides and whitened sepulchers.   Twice he entered the temple, turned over the tables of the official temple moneychangers and drove them out.

One could easily get the impression that Jesus was an angry man, and indeed at times he was.  But I am going to invite a different take on Jesus and these passages from the gospels.  Read them not from the viewpoint of his anger but from the perspective of his love.

“I’ll pay that person back the next time I get a chance.” Have you ever heard someone say something close to that phrase? Have you ever said it? Revenge for a wrong done to you at the time may seem sweet, but don’t be fooled; it is very bitter going down.

It is hard not to desire retaliation when someone has wronged you. It is hard to “let it go” and move on or “forgive and forget.” Even if the clichés are sometimes annoying, it is better for you, in the long run, to not react and lower yourself to the level of the one that hurt you.

Have you ever had one of those weeks that you are just plain grumpy? Well, if you haven’t, I applaud you. I can’t stand it when I’m in what my kids call, “the mood,” and I call “frumpy” (feeling grumpy). I just want to start over on those days or go back to bed because it seems that I can’t get anything right.

Well, the truth is, I need some medicine to help me. Not the kind you get a prescription for, but what the Bible calls good medicine, “a cheerful heart” (Prov 17:22). Even if I have to look hard for something to smile about, I need to do it. I need to show my children that my being in the “frumpy mood” doesn’t mean I have to stay there. It is possible to snap myself out of it, if I am willing. I need to give them an example of not letting your mood ruin your day.

When I was a child, I only thought that idols were statues that people bowed down to and worshipped. So, it was easy to say that I was not committing idolatry. As I have gotten older, I realize it is not always obvious when we are committing idolatry. I know I have said it before, but coveting is idolatry (Col 3:5). Therefore, when we look at that nice new car our neighbor just bought, and we wish we could get one too, well, we just coveted; therefore we broke two laws. Isn’t it awesome that we have a Savior who is very forgiving and patient!

The point is that there are invisible idols. These idols aren’t statues, pictures, symbols, etc., that people can see. They are things in our lives that we end up meditating on daily, worrying about, getting anxious over, striving after above anything else, and most importantly, putting above God the Father and Jesus our Messiah.

You know that favorite cliché when traveling, “Are we there yet?” Well, what about in our lives—are we there yet? Are we happy and content yet with our lives? Or are we still waiting, withholding enjoying life, until we arrive at some destination in our lives? You know, like when someone says, “Well, I’ll be happy when I get a new job,” or “get a new car,” or “get a new house,” or “get married,” or “have kids,” or “retire,” or when “this or that” happens. All we are doing is putting off enjoying life until the next “this or that” happens when we are supposed to enjoy life now. If we put off enjoying life until tomorrow, we may not ever enjoy life because tomorrow never comes; we only live in today.

A post from a good friend of mine this week on Facebook really challenged and inspired me.  It was a great post.  One of those posts where you know you were supposed to read that, and grateful that it didn’t get lost in the sea of non-essential posts.   She compared God’s word as a home that we should intimately know and dwell.  She stated that over the years she had started treating His word as a vacation spot, instead of home.  This post really hit me because it made me realize I do the same thing.  I am not dwelling in His word.  We are to make sure that the “word of Christ” dwells inside us “richly, teaching and admonishing” us in “all wisdom” (Col 3:16).  

She said she couldn’t be in our church because our church is full of sinners.  Those weren’t her exact words, but it was the subtext of her complaint.  One member once stole something, she said.  Another gossips.   Another has impure thoughts.  People never listen when she tries to share her problems. 

One by one she pulled from her gunnysack examples of how we each miss the mark.  None of us could quite jump high enough to touch the line on the wall that would make us acceptable in the sight of God and man.

Many end-time Christian prophecy watchers are fascinated by this news and intrigued by what has recently been announced by the Temple Institute in Jerusalem, Israel. They have recently declared they have completed construction of a Temple altar suitable for conducting sacrifices according to Israel's Sacrificial System and Temple procedures––many are stunned by this most ambitious project that allegedly defines another closer step toward the building of a third Temple. 

A few blocks from where I sit is a thoroughfare named after a certain Todd George, a respected citizen of Lee's Summit, Missouri from generations past.  Not only was he a civic leader, he was also, as legend has it, one of the big shots in the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.  (See page 170 of Truman, by biographer David McCullough).

Thankfully, this community has put away that sordid attitude, but local legend also has Todd George crossing paths with one Harry S Truman when the latter was running for office in Jackson County.

This week leading up to Passover and Unleavened Bread, a thought has been going through my head. Do I love Jesus as much as He loves me? Do I want Him in my life as much as He wants me in His? Am I willing to sacrifice everything for Him, like He did for me? And lastly, am I willing to lay down my life for others like He did for all of us?

Jesus loves us more than we can comprehend. He allowed Himself to be transformed from a spirit being to a human, and then He was tortured, so that we can have eternal life.

Spring has arrived, and luckily, in East Texas we finally have sunlight and some warmer weather. So, it really feels like spring. I sympathize with all my readers who are still freezing up north. My husband is about to take his third business trip to Boston, so he can really sympathize with anyone in the upper northeast US.

Anyway, spring, whether it feels like it or not, is here, and with it starts God’s Holy Day seasons. I love how we have the beginning of God’s Holy Days in one of my favorite seasons and the end of His Holy Days at my other favorite season. It just makes these times even more special.

“Be careful what you pray for because you might just get it.”  I have heard that assertion and it puzzles me.  It’s akin to prayers answered for Uncle Harry’s cancer, only to see the man die in a car wreck two weeks later.  Did God answer our prayer to heal him, and then pull a double cross because we didn’t ask God to protect him too?  

Be careful what you pray for because you might just get it?  That doesn’t seem like the God that Jesus described:  “Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent?” (Matthew 7:9-11 NKJV) 

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits” (Proverbs 18:21).

You know the old saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”? Well, I don’t know who came up with the cliché statement, but they were definitely wrong. Words can hurt. Words are powerful. The tongue may be small, but one little spark can set a forest ablaze. How much can a tongue used unrighteously cause a “fire” (James 3:5-6)? We have to pay attention to the words that come out of our mouths.

“Rash words are like sword thrusts” (Proverbs 12:18a). It is easy to see a black eye, but it is not easy to see the internal scars of rash words.

I am in a love/hate relationship.  I love the King James Version of the Bible.  I love the cadence of language and the ease of memorization that such cadence provides.  I love its impact on the history and culture of the English-speaking world.   Scholarly works and study helps such as concordances are most often keyed to the King James Version.  Of all the English translations I have used, I find myself always gravitating back to the King James Version.  It is my main study Bible.

But the translation aggravates me time and again.  I can get around the “thee’s” and “thou’s” and the archaic usage of certain words (“convict” instead of “convince” and “by and by” instead of “immediately”), but some egregious mistranslations completely aggravate me.   

I need to learn to dance in the rain because life is all about showers here and there. Right now, we are currently in at least the twelfth week of rain. It hasn’t rained every day, but it has rained ever week. How do I know? Well, my family and I finally bought a house, and it has been ready for us structurally, since January. All that needs completed now are the utilities. We do have electric and most of the septic finished, but the rain has halted any more progress. We can’t even drive back to the house because the ground is so saturated we will get stuck. Trust me, I know personally; so does my mother-in-law.