As I was making my bed this morning, I was reminded of a children's story. In the story a wizard told a couple he would grant them a wish: whatever they started doing the first thing in the morning, they would continue to do the rest of the day.
The man and his wife couldn't decide what to do first and didn't want to waste their wish, so until they could agree on an activity, the wife decided to fill her time by cleaning up the yard. Unfortunately, since that was the first thing she did, she continued to do it the rest of the day.
What do you do for your first activity of the day? Eat breakfast? Have your newspaper and coffee? Exercise? Make your bed? Read the Bible? Spend time with God?
Insightfully yours,
Paulita
Monday, August 19, 2013
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Only for Children?
Some 40 years ago we had a company Christmas party at our home. I sat down at the piano and began playing Christmas carols. A couple of guests came over and said, "I remember those. We sang those songs when we were kids."
Last Sunday we sat around one of the tables at Adult Sunday School and discussed how we could become the persons God meant for us to be. Our table was a truly intergenerational table: 2 couples in their 80's, one couple probably late 60's and one couple in their 30's. The outline before us suggested that we could become what God meant us to be by knowing Him and His word. I suggested that we are never too old to memorize Scripture so we can use it to thwart Satan's attacks on our minds. I mentioned the 23rd Psalm which I presumed they all knew. I was astounded when they tried to piece together parts of it they had memorized as children - "He leads me beside still waters," "walk through the valley of the shadow of death," "anoints my head with oil." Finally they all agreed it ended with "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
My question is what happens to these Christmas carols and memorized verses of Scripture when we are adults? Do we dismiss them with "When I was a child I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man I put childish ways behind me." (I Corinthians 13:11) Or do we hide them in our hearts (Psalm 119:11) so we can bring them out as treasures old and new (Matthew 13:52) to comfort and encourage our daily walk?
Insightfully yours,
Paulita
Last Sunday we sat around one of the tables at Adult Sunday School and discussed how we could become the persons God meant for us to be. Our table was a truly intergenerational table: 2 couples in their 80's, one couple probably late 60's and one couple in their 30's. The outline before us suggested that we could become what God meant us to be by knowing Him and His word. I suggested that we are never too old to memorize Scripture so we can use it to thwart Satan's attacks on our minds. I mentioned the 23rd Psalm which I presumed they all knew. I was astounded when they tried to piece together parts of it they had memorized as children - "He leads me beside still waters," "walk through the valley of the shadow of death," "anoints my head with oil." Finally they all agreed it ended with "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
My question is what happens to these Christmas carols and memorized verses of Scripture when we are adults? Do we dismiss them with "When I was a child I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man I put childish ways behind me." (I Corinthians 13:11) Or do we hide them in our hearts (Psalm 119:11) so we can bring them out as treasures old and new (Matthew 13:52) to comfort and encourage our daily walk?
Insightfully yours,
Paulita
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Change
What does the verb "change" mean to you? I react negatively to it. It means disrupting my schedule, my thinking, and perhaps, my values. I don't want to change.
In Bible Study Fellowship, we are often asked, "How has this Bible passage changed your thinking?" or "How will you change because of this insight?" For some reason, my hackles go up. I've already changed. I've chosen to follow Jesus Christ - that's settled. I'm not going to change my mind. I've decided these changes must have to do with my sanctification - the process that continually makes me more like Christ - nothing big, just tweaking, some major and some minor.
I remember a long time ago when I played Marion, the Librarian in the Music Man, my counterpart who played Harold Hill remarked, "You say your lines the same way every time." Wasn't I supposed to do that? I'd practiced them until I figured out the inflections and nuances that sounded right and then delivered them.They were right. Why would I change them every time? Wasn't that an indication of insecurity, let alone fickleness or wishy-washyness? One must know what one thinks, feels, believes, and then move forward.
But I don't want to be what Christ called stiff-necked. I want to be open to His whispers: "Veer right. Edge to the left. Apply brakes. Don't look back." How about "Stop and rest a while." "Look. What do you see?" "Listen. Hear Me above the chatter. I will speak to you in thoughts, plant songs in your subconscious, and help you retrieve Scripture when you need it most. Don't be afraid of change. I will not deceive you. I love You."
God told Isaac, " Do not go to Egypt. Live in the land I gave you." The situation was a famine. God told Isaac's son Jacob, "Don't be afraid to go to Egypt." God was moving the entire family out of Canaan temporarily.
Am I close enough to God to hear His changes as He directs my life?
Insightfully yours,
Paulita
In Bible Study Fellowship, we are often asked, "How has this Bible passage changed your thinking?" or "How will you change because of this insight?" For some reason, my hackles go up. I've already changed. I've chosen to follow Jesus Christ - that's settled. I'm not going to change my mind. I've decided these changes must have to do with my sanctification - the process that continually makes me more like Christ - nothing big, just tweaking, some major and some minor.
I remember a long time ago when I played Marion, the Librarian in the Music Man, my counterpart who played Harold Hill remarked, "You say your lines the same way every time." Wasn't I supposed to do that? I'd practiced them until I figured out the inflections and nuances that sounded right and then delivered them.They were right. Why would I change them every time? Wasn't that an indication of insecurity, let alone fickleness or wishy-washyness? One must know what one thinks, feels, believes, and then move forward.
But I don't want to be what Christ called stiff-necked. I want to be open to His whispers: "Veer right. Edge to the left. Apply brakes. Don't look back." How about "Stop and rest a while." "Look. What do you see?" "Listen. Hear Me above the chatter. I will speak to you in thoughts, plant songs in your subconscious, and help you retrieve Scripture when you need it most. Don't be afraid of change. I will not deceive you. I love You."
God told Isaac, " Do not go to Egypt. Live in the land I gave you." The situation was a famine. God told Isaac's son Jacob, "Don't be afraid to go to Egypt." God was moving the entire family out of Canaan temporarily.
Am I close enough to God to hear His changes as He directs my life?
Insightfully yours,
Paulita
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Feed My sheep
Do you mean to tell me that I didn't have a single insight during January?
OK so I'll start again now.
It was late in the afternoon and Jesus was teaching people. The disciples came to Him and said, "Let the people go home to get something to eat." Jesus said, "You feed them." Then follows the familiar story of the five loaves and two fish - the lunch of a little boy. Jesus miraculously multiplied the lunch and the disciples used it to feed not only all who were there, but to provide left-overs.
Similarly, there have been several times in my life when I have prayed for Jesus to send someone along side to care for a friend of mine and the Lord has said, "You care for her."
During my mother's last two months of life in a convalescent hospital, she had a roommate named Dora. Although I was there to care for my mother, I did form a relationship with Dora. When Mother died, I prayed that God would send someone to minister to Dora. He clearly impressed on my mind, "You minister to her."
Mother died in December. Dora died in late spring. During those few months Dora and I talked, took rides together to get ice cream cones, and read the Bible which she loved. I was with Dora when she left this life to meet her Savior in heaven.
Jesus said to Peter, "Do you love me?" Peter answered, "You know I love you, Lord." And Jesus said, "Feed my sheep."
Insightfully yours,
Paulita
OK so I'll start again now.
It was late in the afternoon and Jesus was teaching people. The disciples came to Him and said, "Let the people go home to get something to eat." Jesus said, "You feed them." Then follows the familiar story of the five loaves and two fish - the lunch of a little boy. Jesus miraculously multiplied the lunch and the disciples used it to feed not only all who were there, but to provide left-overs.
Similarly, there have been several times in my life when I have prayed for Jesus to send someone along side to care for a friend of mine and the Lord has said, "You care for her."
During my mother's last two months of life in a convalescent hospital, she had a roommate named Dora. Although I was there to care for my mother, I did form a relationship with Dora. When Mother died, I prayed that God would send someone to minister to Dora. He clearly impressed on my mind, "You minister to her."
Mother died in December. Dora died in late spring. During those few months Dora and I talked, took rides together to get ice cream cones, and read the Bible which she loved. I was with Dora when she left this life to meet her Savior in heaven.
Jesus said to Peter, "Do you love me?" Peter answered, "You know I love you, Lord." And Jesus said, "Feed my sheep."
Insightfully yours,
Paulita
Monday, December 24, 2012
Christmas Day
Tomorrow will be Christmas Day and for sure I won't have time to write what I want to say, so I'll do it today. I made several discoveries this year when I sat to read the words to all the Christmas songs and Scriptures included in my hymnal. Some were not the familiar first verses, but the obscure third, or the last.
"In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.
"So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn." (Luke 2:1-7)
"How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven. No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.
"O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray. Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today. We hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell. O come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Emmanuel." (O Little Town of Bethlehem)
"Break forth O beauteous heavenly light to herald our salvation. He stoops to earth, the God of might, our hope and expectation. He comes in human flesh to dwell, our God with us, Immanuel. The night of darkness ending, our fallen race befriending." (Break Forth O Beauteous Heavenly Light)
"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:5-11)
"For lo the days are hastening on by prophets seen of old, when with the encircling years shall come the time foretold, when the new heaven and earth shall own the Prince of Peace, their King, and the whole world send back the song which now the angels sing." (It Came Upon the Midnight Clear)
Insightfully yours,
Paulita
"In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.
"So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn." (Luke 2:1-7)
"How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven. No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.
"O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray. Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today. We hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell. O come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Emmanuel." (O Little Town of Bethlehem)
"Break forth O beauteous heavenly light to herald our salvation. He stoops to earth, the God of might, our hope and expectation. He comes in human flesh to dwell, our God with us, Immanuel. The night of darkness ending, our fallen race befriending." (Break Forth O Beauteous Heavenly Light)
"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:5-11)
"For lo the days are hastening on by prophets seen of old, when with the encircling years shall come the time foretold, when the new heaven and earth shall own the Prince of Peace, their King, and the whole world send back the song which now the angels sing." (It Came Upon the Midnight Clear)
Insightfully yours,
Paulita
The Desire of Every Nation
The Desire of Every Nation is mentioned in at least two Christmas carols that I know of. Maybe that is because he is associated with the peace we all want. Here is one instance:
"O come Desire of nations
bind in one the hearts of all mankind
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease
And be Thyself our King of peace." (O Come O Come Emmanuel)
John wrote
"In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through Him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through Him.
All that came to be had life in Him and that life was the light of men, a light that shines in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower.
"...the Word was the true light that enlightens all men; and He was coming into the world.
He was in the world that had its being though Him, and the world did not know Him.
He came to His own domain and His own people did not accept Him. But to all who did accept Him He gave power to become children of God, to all who believe in the name of Him who was born not out of human stock or urge of the flesh or will of man, but of God Himself.
The Word was made flesh, He lived among us, and we saw His glory, the glory that is His as the only son of the Father, full of grace and truth."
"Thou didst leave Thy throne and Thy kingly crown when Thou camest to earth for me. But in Bethlehem's home there was found no room, for Thy holy nativity; O come to my heart Lord Jesus: There is room in my heart for Thee.
When the heavens shall ring and the angels sing at Thy coming to victory, let Thy voice call me home saying, 'Yet there is room. There is room at my side for thee.' And my heart shall rejoice Lord Jesus, when Thou comest and callest me." (Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne)
May you have peace this Christmas - peace with God and peace with man.
Insightfully yours,
Paulita
"O come Desire of nations
bind in one the hearts of all mankind
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease
And be Thyself our King of peace." (O Come O Come Emmanuel)
John wrote
"In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through Him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through Him.
All that came to be had life in Him and that life was the light of men, a light that shines in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower.
"...the Word was the true light that enlightens all men; and He was coming into the world.
He was in the world that had its being though Him, and the world did not know Him.
He came to His own domain and His own people did not accept Him. But to all who did accept Him He gave power to become children of God, to all who believe in the name of Him who was born not out of human stock or urge of the flesh or will of man, but of God Himself.
The Word was made flesh, He lived among us, and we saw His glory, the glory that is His as the only son of the Father, full of grace and truth."
"Thou didst leave Thy throne and Thy kingly crown when Thou camest to earth for me. But in Bethlehem's home there was found no room, for Thy holy nativity; O come to my heart Lord Jesus: There is room in my heart for Thee.
When the heavens shall ring and the angels sing at Thy coming to victory, let Thy voice call me home saying, 'Yet there is room. There is room at my side for thee.' And my heart shall rejoice Lord Jesus, when Thou comest and callest me." (Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne)
May you have peace this Christmas - peace with God and peace with man.
Insightfully yours,
Paulita
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Sleepless Night
Last night I couldn't sleep.That's been happening lately, so I devised a plan. From now on when I can't sleep, I'll get up and read my hymnal. Yep, you read me right. Sometimes I can sing myself to sleep with hymns memorized long ago, but when my legs won't relax in bed, it's hard to remember the songs unless I mentally go through the alphabet. So last night I got up, put on a jacket against the coolness of the house, picked up the hymnal from its permanent place on the piano, and sat in my favorite chair.
At the front of my hymnal are the songs praising God, the Creator. Most of these I know, or at least I can read the music, so I had no trouble singing them in my mind. Within a verse or two (I sang all of the verses) I sensed something I've been missing: awe, praise, wonder, joy, and peace. But don't misinterpret that last word to mean rest, or even that I was getting sleepy. I wanted more, more of this sense of God's presence.
I finally settled on the hymn I'd go to sleep with because I'd learned all three verses as a child. "This is My Father's World" directs me to listen for the sounds of nature, the music of the spheres. It says the carols sung by birds, the beauty of white lillies, and the dawn of each day will tell me something new about my Creator. Finally the writer of the hymn assures me that "though the wrong seems oft so strong," God is still in charge. The battle with sin is not finished, but one day, Jesus, who gave his life for me will be satisfied, when earth and heaven are one.
I rather hope I stay awake again tonight.
Insightfully yours,
Paulita
At the front of my hymnal are the songs praising God, the Creator. Most of these I know, or at least I can read the music, so I had no trouble singing them in my mind. Within a verse or two (I sang all of the verses) I sensed something I've been missing: awe, praise, wonder, joy, and peace. But don't misinterpret that last word to mean rest, or even that I was getting sleepy. I wanted more, more of this sense of God's presence.
I finally settled on the hymn I'd go to sleep with because I'd learned all three verses as a child. "This is My Father's World" directs me to listen for the sounds of nature, the music of the spheres. It says the carols sung by birds, the beauty of white lillies, and the dawn of each day will tell me something new about my Creator. Finally the writer of the hymn assures me that "though the wrong seems oft so strong," God is still in charge. The battle with sin is not finished, but one day, Jesus, who gave his life for me will be satisfied, when earth and heaven are one.
I rather hope I stay awake again tonight.
Insightfully yours,
Paulita
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