Page 352 was pest control service day, so it had an even earlier start than normal.  As I headed out into the early morning darkness I could see that the pavement was wet so I anticipated a rather icy morning.  Instead of a slippery morning commute, I was surprised by an air temperature of forty-one degrees which kept the steady drizzle at a nuisance status rather than a danger.  It also meant that I didn’t need to put down any ice melt and I could keep my morning tasks focused on inside work.  

After the pest control service was done, I turned my attention to the regular prayer, cleaning, and building prep tasks of the morning.  This morning’s soundtrack in my mind drew from way back as I’m not sure when the last time would have been that I had heard the lyrics, “He is able!  Oh, He’s able!  He is able to make you want He wants you to be.”  The song was both reassuring and challenging.  It is reassuring to be reminded of God’s ability to accomplish His will and His way in my life.  It is challenging, however, to consider how deliberately and diligently I seek to be willing to be what He wants me to be.  And if I’m daily submitting to Him, do I accept that while a work in progress I am what He currently wants me to be?  If I’m not, what am I doing about it — or more importantly, what am I allowing Him to do about it?

As I did some of the cleaning tasks, a poem started to show up in my mind as I thought about the increased generosity of many at Christmas time.  I also thought about the events that we celebrate at Christmas and began to wonder what would happen if we celebrated the gift of God’s Son every day.  Once the building was ready for the day, I sat down and quickly typed out the words that had collected in my mind and thus the poem, “Every Day Christmas” came to be.  After publishing the poem on this blog, I turned my attention to the “Monday morning with God prayer guide writing routine”.  I suppose the poem had given me a head start as the topic of love as the greatest gift flowed from the poem and into the subject line of the prayer guide.  The famous passage from 1 Corinthians 13 about love lists sixteen different attributes that love either is or isn’t.  I ended up grouping those attributes into similar categories as I came up with the six daily prayer points regarding this greatest gift of love.

By early afternoon I had the prayer guide finished and remembered to format and schedule it for publication — last week I wrote the prayer guide but got sidetracked before I finished getting it ready to send out, so I found myself working on it on Saturday so it was able to go out Sunday morning.  With grays skies and drizzle, the view out my window was pretty empty all morning.  By mid-afternoon I had a couple blue jays stop by but they weren’t too willing to stick around long enough for photos.  After they left, a few cardinals stopped to check out the remaining berry supply and, judging by today’s photo, take a quick nap. 🙂  That wasn’t sounding like a bad plan, so I finished up the work I needed to get done then stopped for a late lunch on the way home.

While I didn’t end up with the nap, the rest of the day has been restful as I played some video games and spent some more time with the photos from this year.  As evening arrived, I sat down to write today’s page with a plan of finishing the day early and catching up on some sleep.

As I reflect on the day, here are some thoughts/lessons that stand out to me:

• I’ve learned that I have to set up calendar reminders or I tend to forget things that happen on a somewhat occasional, yet recurring, basis.
• Appearances can be deceiving.  Sometimes things are what they appear to be, sometimes they are better than they appear, and sometimes they are worse — but you really never know until you look beyond the appearances to see what actually is.
• Most Christians I know will agree that God is able, but do we live like He is?
• God’s ability isn’t defined by our timetables or desires.
• The love that we celebrate on Christmas day was given to us by God and ought to be celebrated every day.
• To celebrate the real meaning of Christmas every day, we will probably have to rethink what that celebration ought to look like.
• Love really is the greatest gift we can give or receive because true love comes first from God.
• I need to learn from the birds of the air so that I can rest contently in the presence of God.