A New Year. Another Beginning

A new year is about to dawn.  Another beginning.
Full of unknowns.  Full of possibilities.
Potential for fear.  Potential for excitement.
Choices...

This verse is ringing in my mind and it bears recognition...
Prov. 3:5&6
    Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not on thine own understanding.
     In all thy ways ACKNOWLEDGE HIM and He WILL direct thy paths.

With the new year about to dawn, I want to renew my commitment to acknowledge God for I know that is the 'peacefullest' (yeah, i know it's an invented word :)) way.  Because you see, when I acknowledge God I am not alone in my situation.  He is with me.  I have Someone to help carry the questions, the burdens, the joys and the sorrows.  He guides and directs, if I am willing to trust Him and to believe Him and His Greater Truth.
Last year I learned a bit more of trust.  trusting the heart of my Father, in all things.  Now this year I want to LISTEN.  to acknowledge Him and to listen for His words and voice.  To learn a bit more of His heart for myself and others.

        There's a song that goes with that verse...
In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He will direct thy paths.
In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He will direct thy paths.
He will lead you He will guide you He will take you by the hand.
He will lead you He will guide you He will help you understand.
In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He will direct thy paths.

I am grateful.
Grateful for a God who takes me by the hand and who helps me understand a bit more of Him and even my circumstances, at times.  Grateful that He doesn't leave me alone to live out His ways, because His ways are impossible for me to truly live out, on my strength alone.
For how can I love the agape way...
How can I forgive when the pain is deep...
How can I rise victorously over the temptations that threaten me...
What will keep the victories from becoming an idol to my soul...

It is only as I recognize and acknowledge a Power higher than I.  As I lean on Him and acknowledge Him in all my ways, because then I am not an end to myself.  I am not the top-dog.
Isn't that what acknowledging is???
- recognizing someone else.
- realizing we're not the end product.
- it's seeing someone and saying 'what you say and who you are is important'

Mr. Webster says... to admit to be true; confess - to recognize the authority or claims of
the Hebrew is ... to know, to discern, to discover

He wants me to know Him.  He wants you to know Him.  To discover who He is in all our ways - good and bad.
But I must BELIEVE He loves me and has good in mind or I will turn away and not trust Him.

Have a Blessed day and year ahead as you walk with Him!!

Grace, The Gift I Want, But Do I Give

I messed up...
I was too loud...
I spoke too much....
I wasn't kind enough....
I...
I...
You fill in the blank.

And I wonder will people still like me?
Will what I say matter in the light of maybe hurting another unknowingly??

The barrage invades our minds.  my mind.

Grace.  the breath that wisps over the air of our soul and wants to be inhaled.  But will I?  Will the other person offer me that breath?  Will I inhale it when it's offered?  Will I receive His grace and live in it's life-changing breath?
Maybe... It is a choice I need to make...

What is grace?

(back again after a L-O-N-G pause :))

What is grace?  One definition says (and I like it a lot) - to give beauty to.  Another is - thoughtfulness toward others; unmerited love and favour of God toward mankind.

It's what we want when we didn't come through right or came across in a way we did not intend, etc.

It's... will you still love me in the middle of brokenness??  Will you see beyond to what could or can be in spite of what you see right now?

It's what I want from another.  So the question is, Am I willing to be that for someone else?
To bring beauty to their life.  To give them the beauty of understanding, love, forgiveness, etc.  To not write them off in a moment of when they did not come through.

Lord,
   You do not walk away from me when I mess up.  You draw me to Yourself.  You stay PRESENT. (the best present you can give to someone) Longing for me to turn my gaze on You.  to repent.  To lean on You and learn more of You.
   There is forgiveness.  Your heart is so big.  You so badly want to relate with me that You even provide the means for that to happen.
    You sent Your Son for my redemption.  It was man who chose to turn away from what You said.  But it was You who gave, so we could live.
Grace.
Bringing BEAUTY to the ugly of wrong choices.
Grace.
That which we did not deserve and yet You so badly wanted us that You provided the way.

Lord,
   May I understand this a bit more in my heart.  Help me to grasp this in my own heart, so that I may live it for You as I relate to others around me.  We don't get it right and You showed us how to respond in the midst of all of that messy.  Grace.  Love.  Extended.  Breathed in, breathed out.  Inhaled and exhaled to be received by the one who needs it...

(maybe this is a timely posting of something I started weeks ago.... )
This is the Christmas message - Peace (to set at one again) on earth and good will towards men.  Luke 2:14

May you know the Spirit of Christmas, that you may live the Spirit of Christmas.  JESUS. is His name.  Immanuel - God with us.

In all of life.  In every situation.  Through the joys and sorrows.  In the midst of victory and failure.  He is there waiting to remind us who we are in Him - forgiven. loved.  So get up and breathe in the grace He is offering.  Raise your hand to His and let Him lift you higher than you've been before.
Breathe in, breathe out....
Absorb His greater Truth in your heart...
and let it change whatever wrong belief that you're saying to yourself...

That is God's gift to you - HIMSELF.

Then, go, and extend that gift of grace to those you come in contact with.

                                              MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU!!!