Page 303 was a Monday and I finally started the day feeling better than I had in a long time.  A couple days of good rest and catching up on a messed up medication schedule seemed to go a long way in helping me feel more “normal” — whatever that is. 🙂  My morning prayer, cleaning, and building prep was done to the background music of “It is Well With My Soul” going on in my mind.  It has long been one of my favorite hymns, and I believe one of the most complete in addressing the peace that can be found in Jesus regardless of the circumstances we find ourselves in.  

It was a good hymn to carry with me through the day as I had those times of great “peace like a river” attending my way.   But I also had times throughout the day when the “sorrow like sea billows” would roll into my mind and I would find that sorrow leaking from the corners of my eyes — which is an unusual reaction and emotion for me to experience in that way.  While the entire song is filled with great encouragement and comfort for me, my favorite part is in the last verse as I consider the Lord’s return knowing “even so, it is well with my soul.”  It is always a great reminder that even though my life isn’t perfect, often falls short, and could never earn favor with God; even so, through being cleansed by the blood of Jesus, it will be well with my soul when He returns.

Once the usual work of getting the building ready for the day was finished, I turned my attention to some minor plumbing issues to occupy part of my morning.  The other part of my morning was spent on some follow-up in regard to the Growing Strong retreat and putting together another introduction/invitation video for the retreat.  It is looking like this weekend’s retreat will be nothing like I expected it to be and I’m learning to be okay with that.  I’ve thought many times over the weekend about just cancelling this upcoming retreat, but every time that thought comes to mind I hear the scripture that “He who began a good work in you is faithful and will complete it.”  I did not enter into the idea of leading these Growing Strong retreats lightly and am convinced they are a work that God has begun in me, so I press on with the confidence that He will be faithful and complete this work — even if it looks very little like my initial mental picture.  God knows what He is doing and I rarely find out what that is if I don’t keep walking with Him in faith.

By mid-afternoon I was confronted with the fallacy of being able to skip a medication time at the first sign of feeling better.  My mind was starting to become foggy so I headed out for a late lunch, but ended up going home and warming up some leftover ribs because my mind couldn’t focus enough to decide where to eat.  My afternoon at home included some relaxing of the mind, but it also had a lot of continued preparation for the weekend.  In looking at area and regional weather forecasts, I noticed there were gale warning posted for Lake Michigan so by early evening we decided to drive up to St Joseph, Michigan to photograph the wind-whipped waves around the lighthouses of St Joe.  One of the self-made challenges is to try to capture a photo of a wave crashing over the end lighthouse while the lights are on in both of them.  Today’s photo is a combination of patience, timing, and luck — but the first step in being able to capture it was to put myself in proximity to where this was likely to happen.  There was no way I would shoot this photo from home!  Many times we want certain things out of our relationship with God, with others, even with our self; but we don’t do anything to put ourselves in position to experience what we want and then become discouraged that “such and such” didn’t happen.  God says that when we seek Him, we will find Him when we seek Him with a whole heart.  If I desire a more vibrant, “wave-pounding” experience with God, then I must step out of my place of comfort and seek Him with my entire being.

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

• Following instructions can be difficult . . . especially when you think you no longer need them.
• When we ignore God’s instructions because we think we are beyond them, we find ourselves walking into troubled times.
• The seeds we plant in our mind in one season of life becomes the fruit we harvest at another season — plant good seeds.
• While peace is valuable in good times and in stormy times, the greatest peace comes when we can be at peace with God when Jesus returns.
• While we often engage in long-term planning, God typically leads us a step at a time.
• Even when our long-term plans are directed by God, the steps He leads us on during that journey will often be steps of faith rather than steps of comfort and our own knowledge.
• Sometimes roadblocks come in the spirit of Balaam’s donkey because God doesn’t want us to go in a certain direction, sometimes they come from the enemy because he doesn’t want us to go in a certain direction, and sometimes they come in the form of trials and testing with the purpose of increasing our faith.  Wisdom is seeking God for His perspective on the perceived roadblock.
• I love watching the wind-whipped waves on Lake Michigan and picturing in my mind Jesus on the Sea of Galilee saying, “Peace!  Be Still!”

Page 302 was a Sunday and it has been a day filled with God’s goodness and presence.  I began the day addressing some online questions about the Growing Strong retreats, and then headed to church for our Sunday School and worship gatherings.  Our Sunday School class is doing a study through 2 Timothy, but most of today was spent looking at scripture that provides background, context, and commentary on what Paul was writing to Timothy.  When Paul writes and tells Timothy to “be strong”, he is not suggesting that he sign up for a self-defense class, gym membership, or body-building club.  No, he is challenging Timothy to be strong in faith as he does the work God has called him to.  This kind of strength involves things like submission, surrender, and suffering for the cause of the gospel.  Part of the point of the background texts we read this morning was to make it clear that this type of instruction wasn’t just for Timothy — it is what is expected of every believer.

After Sunday School class, we joined the rest of the church family for a time of worship around God’s Word and His Table.  CJ brought a message from Acts 16 as he continued a series that will take us through the book of Acts.  In a message titled, “Rainy Road Trip”,  we were reminded that Jesus is the best umbrella to seek protection under when our “road trip” of life finds us in the midst of rains and storms.  Here are some of my takeaways from the message:

• God is bigger than conflict.  The context leading into Acts 16 is a sharp disagreement between Paul and Barnabas that ends with them parting ways.  Instead of the conflict destroying the work of Paul and Barnabas, in many ways it multiplied it.  While God is not the author of confusion or conflict, He is bigger than any of the confusion and conflict we find ourselves in the midst of whether from our own doing or from that of the enemy.  God continued to work in the lives of Paul and Barnabas both during and after the disagreement.  While there are strong hints in scripture that this conflict was resolved at a later time, in the short term picture God made the best of it by sending Barnabas and John Mark in one direction sharing the gospel while Paul and Silas headed in another — thus a God bigger than conflict took what looked like division and turned it into multiplication.
• People are what your mission is all about.  When Paul would enter a city, he would look for places where people would gather — often starting at places where he anticipated people were seeking to figure out how to know God.  He would often go into the local synagogues and share with the people about Jesus.  Other times he would local places of prayer where he could not only join with them, but teach them about the good news of Jesus.  But even though places were important, people were always more important.  It was a vision of a man calling for Paul to come to Macedonia that led Paul and Silas to Philippi where they not only found a place of prayer, but they spoke the good news of Jesus to those who had gathered and as a result baptized Lydia and her household. 
• Praise and worship overcomes annoyance and frustration.  As Paul and Silas went about Philippi, they encountered a demon-possessed slave woman who was making money for her owners by fortune telling.  To me it is interesting that this woman would follow Paul and Silas for days, shouting out that these men were servants of the most high God and they were giving instruction on how to be saved.  While it is usually nice to have a local endorsement that will vouch for the accuracy of your words, the nature and source of this endorsement eventually got under Paul’s skin and he commanded in the name of Jesus that the demon come out of the woman.  While the Bible says that Paul was annoyed with her when he did this, the real annoyance and frustration came from this woman’s owners who quickly realized their cash flow from fortune telling had dried up with the demon gone.  Their annoyance and frustration turned into a near riot as they had Paul and Silas beaten and thrown in prison.  It is in prison where we see the power praise and worship has over annoyance and frustration.  The Bible says that Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns while chained in prison and the other prisoners were listening to them.  As their praise and worship continued, God caused the doors of the prison to be opened and everyone’s chains to become loose.  When the jailer discovered this, he knew it could only mean one thing — everyone in the prison had escaped and he would be best served by taking his own life before the Roman authorities did.  As he was about to do that, Paul calls out to let him know that he and all of his fellow prisoners were still there.  Rather than giving in to annoyance and frustration, Paul and Silas’s praise and worship resulted in this jailer being baptized into Christ along with his whole household.

After the church gathering, I spent much of the afternoon relaxing and doing some work on the retreat preparations.  Eventually, we decided to head to Potato Creek to take some late afternoon photos as the sun was setting.  It was a beautiful evening along the lake and a fast paced walk along the trail helped keep us warm.  While I took a lot of photos of the beautiful fall foliage as the colors reflected off the calm areas of the lake, today’s photo is one I took of the moon just before we left the park.  I am still fascinated by the detail I can pick up with the camera I have.  I still marvel at the light that shines down from the moon even though it has no light of its own.  It make me think of the detail that God sees in me that no one else can see.  It reminds me of the light that God wants others to see in me even though I have no light of my own — He wants them  to see the light of Jesus. 

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

• God’s Word is not only living and active, it has a cohesiveness that allows us to gain a greater understanding of God by seeing His consistency throughout scripture.
• God’s idea of wanting us to be strong is very different from the world’s typical idea of what strength is.
• God is not a God of conflict or confusion but He is bigger than any conflict or confusion we may create.
• Our failures do not limit God’s successes.
• When we allow God to work, He can take our actions that may look like division and turn them into multiplication.
• People may very well be scary, annoying, frustrating, difficult to understand, and a variety of other things that may make us want to avoid them; but in spite of all that, they are our mission.
• Even when people are friendly, pleasant, welcoming, satisfied, understanding, and a variety of other things that may make us think they don’t need anything, they are still our mission.
• When things are good from our perspective, we need to praise and worship God.
• When things are confusing from our perspective, we need to praise and worship God.
• When things are frustrating from our perspective, we need to praise and worship God.
• When we are awake and when we sleep, we need to praise and worship God.
• Praise and worship of God will overcome annoyance and frustration.
• God makes a dark rock to shine light upon the earth by reflecting the light of the sun.
• God wants to take this dark rock of a human and make it shine light into the lives of people by reflecting the light of His Son.

Page 301 has been a restful Saturday following a very full workday on Friday.  By the end of Friday my brain had become more weary than my body, so today has been an attempt to rest both of them.  I think I’ve had more progress with the body than the mind, but another good night’s sleep ought to help.  

The morning and early afternoon were spent putting together an Impact Prayer Ministry newsletter focused on prayer requests for the Growing Strong retreat aspect of the ministry.  I took a break from writing the newsletter to go to a birthday party for a short while, then emailed out the newsletter when I got back home.

With the day’s focus being on prayer and rest, and a mind that is still a bit foggy, I’ll share some relaxing fall photos to finish out today’s page.  These photos were taken during a late afternoon trip Susan and I took to Potato Creek State Park.  It is always good to have a quiet place to let the mind relax and focus on God’s presence, even if that place is visited through photographs.

Well, I’ve finally reached page 300 in this year’s edition of my page-and-photo-a-day adventure!  You know what that means — only 65 days left in the year!  The day began with an extra jolt to my already addled mind, so it has felt like a longer day than what it has been.  As I went about my early morning tasks, my prayer hymn this morning was “Rock of Ages”.  As I was singing, “Rock of ages, cleft for me; let me hide myself in Thee”, I thought about the pigeons that we saw living in the rock cliffs at a few of the New York state parks we visited last week.  Unless they came out and I caught sight of their movement, they were very well hidden and protected in the hollowed out areas of the canyon walls.  It is often those times when I choose to venture out on my own, away from the presence of God, that I find myself most vulnerable.  

As I was cleaning, the various posters or banners of the “A B C’s & 1 2 3’s”  caught my attention and after the building was ready for the day I discovered a poem that was ready to fall out of my mind.  The seed of the poem was the absolute nature of our understanding of the meaning and value we give to the alphabet and numbers.  This was one that as I started typing the poem out I had no idea where it was going to end up.  Once finished, I could see how it had flowed through my thoughts and I titled it “A Relative Mess“.  After the poem was typed out and added to this blog, I spent some time working in the office before heading outside to clear my mind as much as possible.  It was a cloudy, breezy, chilly day but I fired up the lawn mower and set out to spend some time with God as I mowed lawn and mulched leaves.

By afternoon I had done what needed done outside and I warmed up in my office for a while and watched the birds harvesting the berries from the brush outside my window.  Today’s photo is of one of the cardinals who had paused from the berry eating/collecting just long enough for me to take her photo.  With the breeze blowing against her, you could say she has her dander up and is getting ready for winter.  None of the birds sat still very long and it was difficult to photograph them, but they all were looking rounder than they had all summer as they fill in and fluff out their winter coats.  Once I was warmed up from my mowing project, I headed out to get some cleaning supplies that I would need to finish up the day.  I stopped for a late lunch while I was out and then started the Friday evening cleaning when I got back to work.  My head was starting to buzz, so I kept at the cleaning knowing that if I stopped it would be difficult to motivate myself to get back to it.  By keeping at it, my mind was able to stay focused on the task at hand and I finished with the weekend prep at a decent time.  Since the work had kept my mind focused, when I got done I sat down to write today’s page.  So, with the page nearly written it will be good to soon call it a day and head home where I can rest.

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

• Time generally stands still for no one . . . although there are a couple times recorded in scripture where God did some interesting things with time. 🙂
• Writing something about every day has been a good exercise for me.
• God is always at work.  For me, writing helps me to look for how He was working today.
• When my mind is in a fragile state, it doesn’t take much of a “bump” to cause further disturbance.
• I am thankful for a God in whom I can hide — who is a “cleft for me”.
• When it comes to absolutes, there is nothing as absolute as God.
• Obedience to God doesn’t require that I know all the details of where that obedience will lead.  It only requires that I obey.
• Yes, it is cold out.  But, it is the end of October and even the birds of the air are preparing and expecting it to be cold . . . maybe we should learn something from them. 

Page 299 began with a need to find my gloves and ice scraper as there was a heavy frost on the windshield and windows of my truck.  After clearing the glass so I could safely drive, I made my way to work.  With the coldest night of the season so far, there wasn’t much of a need to check the heating systems when I arrived at work because it was obvious they were working.  As I went about my morning prayer, cleaning, and building prep tasks I found myself singing — I should point out that my singing follows the instructions of Paul to the Ephesians where he says to “sing and make music in your heart to the Lord.”  I suppose if it was audible singing that I was doing, we wouldn’t have much of a need for our pest control service. 🙂  This morning’s song that seemed to take center stage in my mind was “The Solid Rock”.  It seems it is so easy and common for people to build on no foundation at all or, at the most, on foundations of sand.  God’s desire is that we not only build our life on the solid foundation of Christ, but that everything we do is built on that same foundation.

Once the building was ready for the day I took the trash out and found a deer standing along the edge of the woods grazing on the frost covered grass and brush.  I asked her to stay put for a while so I could get my camera.  When I came back outside, she seemed very interested in posing and having her picture taken, so I happily obliged.  I had a helper for the day and with an increase in seizures accompanying the unsettled weather, she was content to rest in my office as I worked on sermon and teaching material.  By early afternoon we packed up our things for the day and went to lunch.  After lunch the air temperature was still rather cool but the sun was shining, so we headed down to Potato Creek State Park to photograph the fall foliage.  There was a steady breeze keeping the water surface moving so I wasn’t able to get the reflections I had hoped for but it was still a beautiful afternoon.

Today’s photo is of a milkweed seed head after it has burst open and is waiting for the wind to carry the seeds to far off places.  With the sunlight shining through it, it made me think of how we ought to be bursting with the love of Jesus so that the winds of the Spirit carry the seeds of His love from us to many far off places.  Sometimes we have all of these seeds of the gospel contained within us but our hardened shell has not been broken open and the seeds have no way of getting to where they need to be.  The gospel is the power of God unto salvation and that “dynamite” power ought to explode through our shell so that those seeds can reach the people around us who have not yet found the love of Jesus.

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

• When you recognize that something is hindering your view, it is imperative that you take the time to clear the “frost” so you can see clearly.
• When you are surrounded by the cold winds of life, the warmth of God’s love is a pleasant feeling to walk into.
• Worship and prayer should be interwoven through our entire life.
• What we build our life on, and what we build our actions on, will determine if either will last for eternity.
• When we are able to live without fear, and without causing fear, we may be surprised at all who become comfortable around us.
• Through His Spirit, God has placed the seeds of the gospel within us and He expects us to open up and let those seeds fly into the lives of the people around us.

Page 298 began as another cold and dreary day, both with the weather outside and with the weather in my mind.  I know that there is a connection between the two areas, and that knowledge helps me to keep pressing on knowing that “this too shall pass”.  The weather that plays a part in wreaking havoc in my mind seems to also mess with the brain wiring of my daughter as she began the day with a seizure.  When I arrived at work, it was a relief to walk into a building that felt comfortable — that was a good sign that the heating systems made it through the first night of the season.

I began the workday by checking the boilers and looking for any signs of leaks that I may not have noticed yesterday.  Everything seemed to be in good shape, so I turned my attention to the morning prayer, cleaning, and building prep routine.  With just over a week until the Growing Strong retreat in northwest Ohio, much of my prayer time focused on that.  The interest expressed in it is more than enough to fill the available space, but so far the actual registrations and commitments haven’t arrived.  I know God’s got this and if I don’t take it out of His hands it will look just like He wants it to, but it is good to keep reminding myself of that fact.

Once the building was ready for the day, I took care of some messages and correspondence then turned my attention to working on the seeds of a sermon for next month.  As I worked, I would keep noticing movement in the brush outside my office window.  I finally caught a glimpse of a bird so fast and tiny I at first thought it was a hummingbird that chose not to head south for the winter.  I eventually saw it more clearly and could tell it wasn’t a hummingbird but it never sat still long enough for me to identify it.  It also wasn’t still enough to photograph, but I did get a shot of the berries that seemed to be attracting the bird to the brush.

By early afternoon my mind was on overload so I made the rounds to check on the heating system before heading home for a late lunch.  After lunch I spent the remainder of the afternoon relaxing before a new poem overtook my mind.  I’ve learned over the years that the best thing to do when that happens is to type it out and share it so that it doesn’t take up residence and clog up my thinking even further.  “The Ark of God’s Presence” is a reminder to me that the waves of despair are not nearly as frightening when I’m riding those waves within the ark of God’s loving presence rather than out in them on my own.  As I wrap up the day, my mind is once again getting blurry and Susan is having some light seizure activity so it is probably time to finish up the writing, take my meds, and get some sleep.

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

• I’m not very good at pretending, and personally I think that is okay.
• Being positive, or having a positive attitude, shouldn’t mean that a person has to be fake.  Sometimes being real about struggles gives a greater witness to the positive power of God.
• Whatever happens here on earth — good or bad — while having an influence on our life, will eventually pass away.  The only things that lasts are the things of God’s kingdom.
• It can be difficult to empty myself of my own desires and trust God to do what’s best, but it is even more difficult to pursue my way if it is in opposition to God’s way.
• Sometimes God reveals His presence in visible ways and other times He moves so quickly that the only purpose is to draw my attention to the things He is moving through.
• When a poem shows up in my mind, I have two choices — either type it out and share it or let it set in my mind and clog up my thoughts.  I’m pretty sure God puts them there to be shared rather than to become a clog. 🙂