If each day carries a predominant theme, then page 99 seemed to have the theme of “Bloom Where You’re Planted.”  After sleeping in longer than what I thought I might, I made the 2 1/2 hour drive to Lansing, Michigan to set up the Impact Prayer Ministry display at the Michigan Christian Convention.  When I arrived, I sat in on a session being taught by Ben Merold as I waited for a break to be able to set up the display.  It is interesting that at a convention with a theme of “Relevant”, Ben continues to teach material that I’ve heard him do for a lot of years yet it remains relevant because it continues to work.  For many, when they talk about the church no longer being relevant, they mean it no longer works for them.  God’s Word is always relevant because it works, but it only works in our favor if we apply it.  

At the first break I was able to set up my display and begin talking to people about the work God continues to do through the prayer ministry.  Then during the lunch break I had lunch with a Great Lakes student that was a part of the children’s ministry I led in my early years at Deer Run.  It was exciting to hear her enthusiasm for a mission trip she plans to take this summer and to listen to her pursuit of God being lived out.  The afternoon was filled with a lot of great conversations that were an encouragement to me and I pray were an encouragement to those I talked with and shared the prayer-based resources with.  

As the convention took a dinner break, I was still full from lunch so I grabbed my cameras and took a walk that was almost a 3 mile round-trip from the college to a nearby park.  There was a chill in the air and an occasional flurry of snow but I still managed to get some photos I liked.  With spring’s reluctance to show up, there were not a lot flowers showing color yet but there were patches of daffodils blooming at various places in the woods along the trail.  At the turnaround point of the trail was a small pond with ducks, gulls, and geese gliding across the water looking for bread that someone evidently had been feeding them.  As I walked back toward the college, my mind entered a period of darkness for some reason . . . or for no reason.  The inner questioning of what am I really doing returned and the enemy began to replant the seeds of doubt and despair that anything I do makes a difference anywhere.  It was as this battle was going on within my mind and spirit that I noticed the randomness of the daffodils.  They weren’t always in a place that made sense and they weren’t always in a place that was very noticeable.  Where they were didn’t seem to matter, they were simply doing what they were created to do and blooming where they were planted.  

When I returned to the convention, there were more conversations with people as they came in for the evening session/concert.  Then during the concert, Andrew Peterson talked about struggling with intense sadness for periods of time and finding how God would use memories from the midst of those struggles to form songs.  As he shared in song and testimony I felt that God wanted me to share with him so after the concert and after he had signed CD’s and books for people, I thanked him for his music and his testimony and gave him a copy of each of my poetic devotional books telling him that it was usually in the times of my greatest depression and discouragement that God would put poems in my mind that I wrote down and eventually put into books.  I don’t know if he will read them or even do anything with them, but I did what I believe God wanted me to do in sharing them.  God planted me in this place at this time so my faithful response is to do my part in blooming where I’m planted.

I pray that you and I would realize there is some type of work for us to do wherever we are.  I pray that even when the “work” God calls us to do is rest, that we would be obedient in doing it.  I pray that we would make the most of the opportunities to encourage the people around us.  I pray that we would allow God to use even the seasons of discouragement we face to cause us to listen more intently to Him.  I pray that we would do the things His Spirit prompts us to do even when they are outside of our comfort zone and may not make much sense to us.

Page 98 has had a Friday feel to it as I finished preparing for this weekend’s Michigan Christian Convention.  A big part of the prep today was getting the building ready for Sunday which included my Friday cleaning.  But before that could happen, the day began with our fire alarm company in the building doing an annual inspection and testing of of our detection system.  The final report states that everything passed with no deficiencies in the system — a report I like to hear! 🙂  Once the inspections were taken care of I did some financial record-keeping for the church missions account and caught up on the latest newsletters from the missions Deer Run helps to support.  As I worked in the office snow would fall throughout the day, sometimes fairly light and sometimes quite heavily.  The sun fought to come out at times but always seemed to be overtaken by the snow clouds.  In the breaks between snow times, the wildlife would become active and try to brave the snow until it became heavy then they would disappear until the next clearing.

As I watched the bunnies, squirrels, and a variety of birds come and go, I thought about their persistence in both enjoying the day and finding shelter when needed.  At one point a pair of cardinals sat outside my window singing for me . . . or perhaps more likely, singing for each other.  I thought about how easily many of us tend to give up when circumstances are less than ideal.  Or maybe we don’t give up, perhaps we take the other extreme and stubbornly continue something when we ought to be seeking shelter and rest.  Perhaps we have difficulty singing in the calm because we have failed to take shelter within the hand of God during the storm.  Maybe we feel we have endured a storm one time too many so we have quit coming out to sing once the storm passes.  

God tells us that in this world we will have trouble but that we should be encouraged because He has overcome the world.  While they don’t seem to like to be out in it, the wildlife seem to come out and celebrate the snow as they drink in the moisture that it leaves behind.  Sometimes, particularly in the midst of it, we tend to forget how much the “inclement weather” in our life helps us to grow.  It is when we appreciate the growth process and the necessity of all that helps accomplish that, we are able to sing God’s praises for all that He is and all that He provides.

I pray that you and I would seek God at all times of our life.  I pray that we would look to God for the wisdom in knowing the things we need to endure and knowing when it is time to retreat into a season of rest.  I pray that we would learn to praise God for both the things He brings us to and the things He brings us through.  

Page 97 began with flashes of lightning and the booming sounds of thunder as a storm rolled through early in the morning.  After being gone from work for two days, my morning felt like a Monday as I worked on my typical Monday tasks.  I know, most people dread Monday’s but I tend to enjoy them as that is my usual day to spend time with God working on the prayer guide for the following week.  As that task got shifted to today this week, it was a prayer guide focused on self-control that came out of my prayer time.  Once the prayer guide was written, I worked on some things in the building and started gathering the material, information, and books I will take to the Michigan Christian Convention for an Impact Prayer Ministry Display.  

After my work day I came home and continued going through the pictures I took during our little state park and covered bridge excursion.  It is difficult to go through 500 photos trying to pick out a handful of them to represent what we saw in order to share them on social media.  The photo I’ve included with today’s page is the first one I took when we arrived at McCormick’s Creek State Park late Sunday afternoon.  We had checked into our room and went out for a walk before dinner.  There was a loop trail marked “moderate” on the map that would pass by the waterfall and it began and ended near the lodge so we got out Susan’s trail wheelchair and started our hike.  With recent rains, the waterfall was beautiful so we spent some time there taking pictures before continuing down the trail.  It wasn’t long before the “moderate” trail became more rugged and Susan had to walk down some “steps” before continuing her ride.  The final set of steps we took led to the creek bed where we discovered that the creek bed itself was the trail for the next section.  The wheelchair wasn’t going to work on that so we turned around and went back to the lodge for dinner.  Our after-dinner “moderate” trail wasn’t a lot closer to my definition of moderate, but with Susan walking through some of the more rugged sections we made it through that entire trail.

Many times, people begin the Christian life thinking that the path ahead of them should be an easy walk.  When compared to a life of sin, the path taken by a Christian is often mistakenly believed to be a path of ease and comfort.  Unfortunately, many people become greatly disillusioned when their path of life changes from easy to moderate and then from moderate to rugged.  The blue skies, warm temperatures, and pleasant paths that we experience when the weight of our sins are washed away quickly change to cloudy skies, cool temperatures, and rocky paths.  And then there are times when the storms of life come and the walk becomes more rugged than we ever expected.  The problem, both in my hike at the park and in our Christian walk, is not that we’ve been misled but rather that we’ve not paid attention to the trail guide for either walk.  As I went back and read the information I picked up when we entered the park, the trail descriptions described steps, ravines, and the creek bed as all being part of the trails I chose to take.  The easy start to each trail wasn’t designed to fool me, it was simply a part of the ebb and flow of the park terrain.  When we read the Christian life “trail guide”, we find that God has made it clear that we will have trouble in this life.  Yes, there are times of peace and comfort but those aren’t designed to fool us into thinking the Christian life is easy rather they are designed to give us times of rest.  

The key to finishing the hike, whether the park hike or the Christian life, is to simply keep pressing on.  God’s call and expectation for each of us is that we would be found faithful — that when Jesus returns for us, we are still walking the path we’ve chosen in Christ.  I pray that you and I would enjoy the days when the path we walk is easy.  I pray that we would spend time with God in His Word so that we better understand the full nature of the path He has called us to.  I pray that we would be faithful in walking that path not only on the easy days, but on the moderate and rugged days as well.  I pray that when Jesus returns we would each hear those words, “Well done good and faithful servant!”

Page 96 was the final day of our little spring break getaway and we covered a lot of territory.  Between Monday and Tuesday, we visited 4 Indiana State Parks and 15 different covered bridges spread across 5 counties.  While there were a lot of highlights that were photo worthy, the greatest highlight of the trip was just enjoying life together as a family.

We left McCormick’s Creek State Park this morning with partial addresses for the first 5 bridges we hoped to photograph.  When I started putting them into my GPS, many of the addresses were not valid or understood, so we enjoyed some beautiful countryside driving as we figured out where the next bridge would be.  My phone turned out to be more helpful as I could look up the bridge by name and then it would give me directions.  This worked well until we hit several areas where I had no cell service.  We still managed to find the five I had begun my list with and then went on to find six more today to go with the four we photographed yesterday.

The bridges were nice and I think I took some decent photos of them, but I find the natural beauty of creation draws my attention a lot more than even the incredible works of man.  Today the beauty of a cloud dotted blue sky and a variety of wildflowers called out to be noticed.  As we were driving to one of the bridges, an owl flew in front of the truck and landed on a tree along the road.  I managed one photo of him in the tree and one of him leaving as he wasn’t too thrilled about us stopping to take pictures.  My current favorite of the day is the flower I’ve added to this page.  It has such a remarkable purity and beauty and the contrast of the thin leaves helps to draw that out.  

As I think about the day, I think about a simpler time when people would accomplish great tasks without the availability of our modern equipment simply by working together.  These covered bridges served a need and many of them were built by farmers who harvested the timber from their land and got together to put a bridge across a creek so their task of getting places was easier.  I think that many times we don’t accomplish what we could and should because we don’t believe we have the proper equipment, skill set, resources, permission, you name it.  So instead of working together as God has called us to, we sit back and bemoan the fact that nothing gets done anymore like it used to.  God has created us to not only need Him, but to need one another.  He equips each of us with gifts, abilities, and resources that are only a part of what is needed to accomplish His purpose in our lives.  It is when we allow Him to combine what He’s given us with the things He has given others, that the body of Christ functions as it should.

I pray that you and I would recognize the beauty of a simple life that honors Christ.  I pray that we would make everything God has given us available back to Him to use with the gifts He has given others to accomplish the good works He desires for us to do.  I pray that the body of Christ would not only talk about being one, but that we would learn to work as one.

.  

Page 95 in this written journal of the year 2016 was spent with my family doing a little sightseeing and photo taking.  Our original plan was to head north and spend a day or two photographing lighthouses along Lake Michigan.  With winter not wanting to release its grip and allow spring to fully arrive in northern Indiana and Michigan, we decided to head to central Indiana where the forecast was for warmer weather.  With an overnight base at the McCormick’s Creek State Park Inn, we woke up this morning and headed to Brown County to photograph a couple covered bridges there.  One of the bridges is at the entrance to Brown County State Park, so we drove on in and took some pictures there as well.  It was at the park that I took the photo that is included as part of page 95 — more later about why I chose that photo.

After our visit to Brown County State Park, we headed up Greasy Creek Road to make our way to Bean Blossom, Indiana to see the covered bridge there.  By the time we were done photographing there, we headed to lunch where we would refuel our bodies and decide what was next.  The decision was made to head a couple counties over to Greene County where we found another covered bridge just south of Bloomfield, Indiana.  We spent some time photographing it then headed back through Spencer, Indiana to Cataract Falls to photograph the covered bridge there as well as the falls.  Once done there, we completed our loop with a return to McCormick’s Creek State Park where we took a 2 mile hike with Susan riding most of it in her wheelchair including a few stream crossings.  All in all, a pretty good day — four counties, four covered bridges, an impressive waterfall, a two-mile hike, and dinner with a variety of birds entertaining us outside the dining room window.

As I started going through today’s photos and reflecting on the day, the photo below reminded me of the song lyrics taken from Psalms 36, “Your love reaches to the heavens, Your faithfulness stretches to the sky.”  I’ve always found this Psalm, and the corresponding song, a little strange though.  I suppose it could be said that while Jesus was on earth His love reached to the heavens and His faithfulness stretched to the sky, but other than that small slice of time I more often picture His love and faithfulness coming from the heavens and the sky.  As I watch the trees reaching toward the heavens, I noticed the elements of the heavens — the sun, the clouds, the blue sky — surrounding the very things reaching toward them.  A day with my family is a lot like that.  We reach toward each other and together we reach toward heaven and find that God’s love and faithfulness has surrounded us as we walk together.  These moments we spend as a family are priceless.  To walk together and hear Susan laugh is a slice of heaven itself.  To hear her talk about taking her dog (a large non-real plush Dalmatian) to heaven to see Jesus — “when it’s time” — reminds me often of where our home really is.

I pray that you and I would pay attention to the many ways that God extends His love and faithfulness to us each day.  I pray that we would value the family God has given us.  I pray that we would always face each day with an awareness that our assured hope is to see Jesus — “when it’s time”.

Page 94 had an early start as I headed to the church to check the walks and make sure everything was cleaned and ready for the morning.  With the snow coming down heavy off and on all day Saturday, I knew I would need to check on things Sunday morning so I didn’t end up going in Saturday night.  Once everything was ready at Deer Run, I headed home to get cleaned up and head to Dowagiac, Michigan where I shared the morning message out of Philippians chapter two.  After preaching for the North Wayne Mennonite Church, we went out to lunch then stopped by the house to pack a few things for a quick family get-a-way.  We made it to our destination by 4:30 and went for a short hike before dinner, then a longer, more rugged hike after dinner.  There was a lot of beauty to be seen and a couple deer who hadn’t gotten the message from my deer friends back home that I was coming down to see them.  🙂

The morning message was titled “A LIFE of Joy”.  We looked at the foundation of love required for true joy.  Both a love for God and a love for one another are necessary if we wish to have the abiding joy that is part of the fruit of God’s Spirit within us.  It is in Philippians two that Paul describes the kind of love necessary for the joy that most of us want.  This love is personified in Jesus who “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking on the likeness of a man.”  Scripture teaches that there is no great love than to lay down our life for our friends . . . and that is what Jesus willingly did even while we were enemies with Him and the friendship was only from His perspective.

We also looked at the instruction given for joy.  While the instruction began with the example given of Jesus being obedient to death — even death on a cross, the more practical instruction for us on a day to day basis is the command to “do everything without complaining or arguing.”  Doing this will put a joy within us that causes us to shine in a culture that is constantly yelling about their rights and their way.  The more we find ourselves complaining and arguing, the less we will find ourselves living with a joy that attracts people to Jesus.  Christians are often known for fighting about things that don’t really matter rather than uniting on the things that do.

As we begin to live the love and follow the instruction given for godly joy, we discover a necessary element of faith to have a life of joy.  Faith creates joy because it causes us to trust God even when our circumstances make trust difficult.  Most of the New Testament writings that we have from Paul were written while he was under some type of confinement.  Some of them while under house arrest and others while in prison.  Even in the midst of such circumstances, he wrote about his joy being made complete by God working in the lives of those who would read his letters.  When hard and unfair times come, and they will, it is our faith that God knows and still loves and cares for us that enables us to live with joy.

The final point in the “LIFE of Joy” message was to recognize the eternal element that is the culmination of our joy.  The writer of Hebrews tells us that “for the joy set before Him, [Jesus] endured the cross.”  A quick read of the crucifixion story should convince anyone that the joy wasn’t in the mocking, the spitting, the scourging, the beating, the nails through the hands and feet, or any of the crucifixion process.  I believe the joy was at least two-fold.  One, a joy of satisfaction that His work was finished.  The price that only He could pay for the sin of mankind had been paid and His purpose on earth — His death, burial, and resurrection — was complete.  Secondly, and I think more importantly, there was the joy of knowing He was headed home!  When we base our joy on an eternal perspective with our eyes fixed on going home, our endurance of the “junk” of this world should increase.

Why is a life of joy so important?  Because people are watching!  They may not appear to be watching, you may not even notice they are watching, but they are!  I pray that you and I live a life of joy as we live each day for Christ.

I enjoyed a slow start to a Saturday but eventually got up to go through the photos I took last night and go through the sermon text that I will use tomorrow morning at the North Wayne Mennonite Church.  Susan slept in as well, only much later than I did, so once I got her up and around for the day I pulled the grill out to make lunch.  It had snowed earlier in the morning but the sun had come out so grilled cheeseburgers sounded like a good plan for lunch before heading to my niece’s wedding.  As I got the grill going, the sky opened up and let loose a blizzard-like whiteout of snow!  Fortunately I had opened the garage door and the grill was setting just under cover in the doorway as I hadn’t been convinced the earlier snow was finished.

As I watched the snow settle on the truck, the ground, and the flower petals I was amazed at how much of it was falling.  I went inside to grab my camera and as I shot some photos of the snow-capped daffodils, I thought about how I respond to the unexpected.  I don’t know if the spring flowers expect snow, but it would seem like it would be quite a shock to them.  I don’t like many surprises or unexpected things.  I don’t even handle good surprises all that well, let alone surprises that are not so good.  Once I am used to something, I like it to stay that way and when it is time for something different I like plenty of notice and preparation time.  I say “I like” because it rarely happens that way.  Much of life is like the unexpected snowfall that we just have to endure and trust that God will get us through it.  

At least in my life, sometimes the unexpected is needed because we become so comfortable with our routine that it takes a burst of “snow” to wake us up to the reality of where God is wanting us to be.  Many times it has been the unpleasant surprises of life that have caused me to seek God more fully and pay closer attention to what His desire is for me.  When it feels like my life is covered with snow and my heart is growing cold, I know the only thing that brings lasting warmth is the presence of God in my life.  I can either wilt from a frozen connection to my source of life or I can turn my face to the warmth of  God’s Son.

Following my morning lesson and lunch, we headed to my niece’s wedding and reception.  It was a beautiful wedding with a deliberate effort to keep God at the center of the ceremony and marriage.  There were people at the reception that I don’t think I’ve seen since high school days many years ago.  Either I haven’t changed much or they have better memories than I do because a number of people knew who I was and called me by name but I had no clue who they were.  When I would find out the name, I could place it with a person from school but typically the person in front of me didn’t look like the person my mind was picturing.  Somehow it seems that most of the people from my school days, other than MJ and I, have gotten old!  I guess it was a reminder that life moves on.  I often say that having Susan as a perpetual child helps keep us young and perhaps I am at least partially correct.

I pray that you and I would always look to God when we are faced with surprises, whether pleasant or not.  I pray that we would recognize the need for continual growth in our walk with God and expect the changes that accompany the growth.  I pray that when we begin to feel distant an cold, we would turn fully to the One who gives life.  I pray that God is always at the center of our life and at the center of all our relationships.

Page 92 would have seen the rising sun if it hadn’t been cloudy and drizzling to start the day.  The clouds gave way to sunshine by mid-afternoon so when I left work at 7 this evening I headed down to Potato Creek to catch the sunset.  As I arrived, the clouds began to return and as the sun dropped behind them the temperature began to fall.  One of the eagles met me as I drove into the park so I managed some photos of it and some sunset photos before heading home.  

This page was a Friday which meant early cleaning to start the day and late cleaning to end the day.  In between was some writing, maintenance tasks, and sermon prep.  With a game night at the building tonight and a funeral dinner tomorrow, my weekend cleaning will end up being spread out between this evening and tomorrow night.  As the sun set in the sky and I sat on the pier, I thought about the cleaning that God does in a life submitted to Him.  

Fridays require extra time to fully clean and prepare the building for Sunday worship.  While the daily cleaning that gets done helps keep the weekend cleaning manageable, neither makes the other unnecessary.  Our spiritual life needs similar attention.  Many people live as if a weekly, or even less frequent, attendance at a church service should be enough to keep their life on track with God’s plan and desire.  The effort required to connect with God becomes overwhelming because we’ve allowed the dirt of the world to create a growing distance between us and God.  When we spend time with God on a daily basis to allow Him to deal with the dirt that we get into, the task of being clean before Him isn’t nearly as daunting as when we allow the filth to accumulate.  While it is tempting to look at the current condition and decide it isn’t that bad, putting off a regular cleansing simply makes the work of living clean take much more time and effort when we finally decide a time of cleaning is in order.  When we clean before the mess becomes intimidating, we find the freedom to enjoy the beauty of life that God created for us to have.

I pray that you and I would daily cleanse our life of the sin and filth that so easily entangles and sticks to us.  I pray that we would always remember that the only cleansing agent that has any real effectiveness is the blood of Jesus.  I pray that we would not let sin and filth accumulate in our life, but that we would deal with it as it happens.  I pray that we would know and experience the true beauty of life that comes from being cleansed.