His Children

As I sat down with my coffee this morning to read for a bit, my Bible fell open to 1John 3. I read through several verses of the chapter but my attention kept going back to the first couple of verses. Isn't it amazing how God loves us and allows us to be called His children? (NLT) The first verse or two talks about how we are His children and perhaps the rest of the world has a difficult time understanding that we can be called the sons of God. (1John 3:1-3)

Of course being the son of a king comes with great responsibility as we see in verse 3. We must keep ourselves pure just like Christ is pure. Just because our lives took a sometimes sharp turn into caregiving does not mean that we are relieved of this responsibility. We still serve Him and we are still His children. Meditating on being His child made me think about another scripture that is in Isaiah.

Isaiah 49:15 asks if a mother could forget her nursing child. It's interesting that the prophet used the analogy of a nursing child because any woman will tell you that it can be painful to abruptly stop nursing. The pain would remind you of the child and there would be no way to not remember that you had a child! Then he goes on to say - even if that were possible,I would not forget you! What a comforting thought it was to me to remember that I am His child and He will not forget me!

Today I will meditate on what it means to be a child of God...and I will rejoice in the truth that He has not forgotten me, and will not forget me...but He continues to walk this rocky road with me!

Now This is Good News

I'm not sure about anyone else, but I have loads of questions on a daily basis. Caregiving was not what I was planning to do with my latter years. I had other things in mind like traveling the world. If I am not careful I can get all bogged down in what could have been and then I cannot adequately deal with the day. But today I stumbled across a scripture as I was reading and it really hit me that even if life doesn't look like I thought it was supposed to...it does not mean it's all messed up. That was good news for my mind and heart this morning.

Romans was written by the apostle Paul to the Romans. What's significant about that is that he was writing on purpose to the Gentile population. He was writing to encourage them in this new walk of faith that they had embraced. In verse 16 of the first chapter he begins to tell them that he isn't ashamed of the gospel of Christ; that it is the power of God for those who believe. And then verse 17 was what grabbed my attention this morning: This Good News tells us how God makes us right in His sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. (NLT)

Even if life does not go as planned and it does not look perfect - we do not lose our right standing  (righteousness) with God. Through faith He carries us and keeps us in right standing with Him. Even in all my whining, griping and thousands of questions a day - He keeps me in right standing with Him. Now that's some good news! Our righteousness is not disrupted by the rough days or the smooth days that life throws at us. We just have to keep trusting in Him!

Today my meditation will be on the righteousness He has provided for me to walk in.

Big Shoulders

  One thing that I absolutely love about God is that He has big shoulders. He can handle anything I need to give to Him to carry. God's ...