Basic Truths | Finding God in Everyday Life

  I suspect most of you will agree with me when I say that not being able to find your keys is one of the more frustrating experiences of everyday life. It usually happens when I’m on a tight schedule. My anxiety levels increase the more places I look. Eventually, I call time out to think about where I’ve been and where I could have left them. After that, with a few prayers and the guidance of the Spirit, I usually remember where I need to go and get them.   The past few years have been stressful ones. Studies have shown increasing anxiety, depression, and stress-related health issues across all ages and socioeconomic levels, with adolescents seemingly the most affected. We all long for peace even if we are not fully aware of it – it is part of our innermost being.   This longing for peace can cause us to frantically go in search of it. Some places we look are bad for us, such as alcohol and drugs. Others are only effective for a short time. We can engage in nonstop a...

  My parents grew up during the Depression. As is true for most people from that era, they were savers and were loathe to let anything go to waste. I grew up learning those values and have continued them in my own life.   I think it’s interesting that the apostles were told to gather up all the fragments after Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes. If Jesus fed thousands of people with only a few loaves and fishes, surely he could do another miracle if others needed to be fed. But that wasn’t the way it was. Jesus thought it was important to not take anything that He provided for granted, that everything He provided should be of use to someone, that nothing should be wasted.   This same principle is true in our lives today. God has richly blessed each of us. He expects that nothing that He gives us should go to waste, that everything He provides should go not just for our own benefit but for the advancement of the kingdom. This is true for both our material and s...

    It is November 10 th as I write this. We still have a bluebonnet blooming in our front flower bed! For those of you not from Texas, bluebonnets are our state flower. They are annual flowers that bloom in the spring and then go to seed. All of our bluebonnets did just that except for this single plant.   It has persisted in the face of what seemed like an insurmountable obstacle, namely the 100+ degree heat of the Texas summer. It continues to bloom because that is its nature, what it is called to do.   The bluebonnet reminded me today that we can be “…more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom 8:37). We can look at the challenges that face us and decide that we can’t do it, whatever “it” is, that it’s just impossible or impractical or just too much trouble. We may be right, if we are looking at it from only a worldly view. We may get a different answer when we look at it from God’s point of view....

  We have been blessed with the opportunity to travel overseas. On a few occasions, we traveled around the countryside in a rental car. I always made it a point to learn enough of the local language before going so that I could try to read the signs and warnings along the road.   We need to be able to read the signs around us, not just the signs of the times in our society but the signs God puts up to direct us in our own lives. God loves us and wants us to follow along the path that will be the best for us and for His kingdom. He will give us signs but we have to be willing and able to read them.   We read in Proverbs, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight” (Prov 3:5-6).   Commit your ways to the Lord and ask Him to help you see and understand the signs He puts before you. Then see what He will do.