Good morning! Another Friday has come to us in all of God's glory. Woof! Tough challenge in the action point from Pastor Rogers today. The question is not where to start in telling of the ways God's Word has changed my life, but where to finish! Once more I must take a moment to thank God for the modern miracles of e-mail and data storage. Pastor Rogers has been gone from this earth for some 3 or more years now, but we still read, discuss, and enjoy his devotionals.
The economic news is all about doom and gloom again today; whatever would we do without our dear media sources to depress us? Is it any wonder we need to go to God's Word daily? Perhaps 2 or 3 times a day to help counteract the bad news the media would have us read and watch these days? I see that Gmail has added emoticons this morning, I shall have to make some good use of them in the devotionals.
What to say on a Friday? We pray for those who must go to work today, especially at stressful and tense places where people are fearing for the longevity of their positions. Shouldn't work be fun, rewarding, and challenging? Perhaps not all three at once, but surely some fun and rewards could come now and again? Thinking back over my last few years at my former workplace, it is difficult to remember anything but the challenges. Like this little lobster fellow, nothing but challenges! This would seem to go against the assertion Jesus made that His yoke is easy and his burden light. Well, yeah! Jesus, I believe, never intended for us to be beaten down by our workplace life. However, we see that more and more these days as companies use every excuse they can find to squeeze ever more work out of the employees. Some of this is unintentional. From a distance it may seem that another's job is easy, that they never do enough. However, we are told to empathize with others, to love them and walk a mile in their shoes before trying to judge their actions or position. Have you or I been critical of another person and their job? Probably. At some time we have criticized directly, or more likely indirectly, another person's job. We may not have stopped to consider that due to experience, training, and/or talent, that person makes their job look easy. We might want to pray for someone before leaping to any conclusions about their work or performance of that work.
Writing! I promised to keep you updated on my progress, and here is your Friday report so to speak. Yesterday, I wondered how it seemed that I would start off with a great idea, writing for 20 - 30 minutes, perhaps more, and then it would seem as though the tap had been shut off. Considering how harshly self-critical I am, I brought this to God and was struck by the thought that God is giving me as much as I can stand right now. We often think of this in terms of the bad things in life, but it seems to me that too much of a good thing might be harmful too. Therefore, God is parceling out the writing inspiration in amounts that I can take right now. I think of a novel as a large project in much the same way that I thought boot camp would be tough before arriving there and experiencing the reality. I have only just begun my writing career; a bit more than two weeks is a bit soon to expect very much in the way of good writing. I am following a lot of good advice, and one is to get the projects that I have put off for the past 3 or 4 years out of the way and off my mind.
One project is the big garage sale to clean out some accumulated stuff in my house. I thought that I would be ready this weekend, but there is a lot more stuff than I anticipated. I shall need to price the stuff with an eye toward what a buyer would like to see in order to get the stuff out of here and in appreciative hands. I may be able to give some stuff to the trick 'r treaters on next Friday evening. "No candy, sonny, how about an old sheet?" Then again, maybe not.
God bless you on this fine Friday morning!
Bucky
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