Page 277 has been a three season day.  It began with warm spring breeze bringing in a gentle rain.  Eventually that spring rain gave way to a thunderstorm which was followed by sunshine and summer-like temperatures.  As evening came, the wind had shifted direction and the cool rain of autumn began to fall.  I suppose there is still time before the day is finished for winter to arrive as well, but I am hoping that season stays away for a while yet.

As I went about my early morning tasks, the turmoil in this country and around the world continued to be a major part of my prayer focus.  It seems that nearly everyone is shouting so loudly about how right they are that they’ve all lost their voice — and there is no one left to listen even if a voice still existed within the maddening clamor.  We’re so busy shouting down each other that the still, small voice of God often goes unnoticed and unheeded.

Once the building was ready for the day, I put on my accounting hat and turned my attention to the record-keeping for the church missions.  That is always an enjoyable task as it keeps me connected with a variety of mission works around the world.  As I was reading through reports, Susan had a seizure so I spent some time protecting her and then comforting her as she eventually came out of it.  After she was through the seizure and resting, I went back to finishing up the work I was doing with the missions information.  

I eventually wrapped up the workday with some additional work on the retreat material before heading home for a late lunch.  As I relaxed at home I took my camera outside to take some more photos of the remaining fall flower blossoms while they were coated with raindrops.  Today’s photo is one of those and it can’t help but remind me of the song from The Sound of Music, where they sing about a “few of my favorite things”.  It is good to have favorite things that remind us of God’s goodness and faithfulness.  When times are difficult and turmoil seems prevalent everywhere you look, it is important to have reminders that draw us back to the peace we have in Christ.

As I began writing today’s page, I heard a loud thud from upstairs as Susan had another seizure and fell over in her bedroom.  I guess it shouldn’t be that surprising, as this is often the result of the weather changing multiple times throughout a day.  

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

• Change is often more tolerable when it is gradual, but that is not always possible.
• When change happens quickly, sometimes all you can do is hold on to something solid and wait for the calm to come.
• There is nothing more solid to hold onto than Jesus.
• When everyone believes they have the right answer, there is usually very little listening taking place.
• Shouting, whether with verbal or written words, will rarely lead to productive conversations.
• God is doing great work through people all around the world.
• The work of “missions” has many different faces and places.  One of those combinations is you and wherever you are.
• It is good to have some “favorite things” that remind us of God’s love for us.
• When we are seized by something beyond our control, it is important that we have someone who will hold onto us and carry us through.  Jesus does that by His Spirit and through people like you and I.

While the moon is nearly full, it is in a cycle where it rises early in the evening and sets earlier than I get up for work.  This means that it is fairly light out during most of the night, but after the moon sets the stars are shining brightly in the early morning hours.  My nights are still very restless for some reason, so I saw a lot of the moonlight during the night before getting up and heading to work.  

My early morning prayer, cleaning, and building prep time included a lot of prayer for the many people whose lives have been turned upside down by the attack in Las Vegas.  As I prayed, I continued to pray that the light of Jesus would shine brightly through His children in the mist of this terrible darkness.  I prayed for the courage to be the part of that light that I am meant to be.  I prayed that the people who make up the body of Christ would rise above the divisiveness that has permeated nearly every aspect of our nation — including the church.  

Once the building was ready for the day, I began a major undertaking — cleaning off my desk. 🙂  I tend to sort and stack things in piles on my desk as they come in and it isn’t long before the accumulation has completely overtaken my work space.  While appearing, and being, quite cluttered, I tend to know where everything is and can access what I’m looking for rather quickly.  I suspect that if I would get in the habit of putting things away and in files where they belong as they come in I would get used to finding them there, but now that I’ve put everything away it will be difficult for me to retrieve anything very quickly as I have to remember its new location.  While I didn’t get the desk completely cleared of everything, I made good progress and it looks much better even with a few things on it that I haven’t quite figured out where their rightful home should be. 

In addition to cleaning, I spent time working on some more of the Growing Strong retreat material and began to let the scripture text for Sunday’s sermon simmer in my mind.  As the workday ended, I stopped for a late lunch on the way home and then spent some time relaxing.  By evening, a light rain had begun to fall so I took my camera outside to photograph raindrops on roses . . . and other flowers.  As I wandered the front lawn, I found an out of season daylily blossom.  It made me think of Paul’s instruction to Timothy to “preach the Word.  To be ready “in season and out of season.”  This blossom may be out of its regular season, but it still proclaims the glory of God and the majesty of His creativity.

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

• For everything there is a season . . . sometimes the difficulty is figuring out what the current season is in life.
• When the light is bright, it is easy for it to overshadow the “smaller” lights that exist.
• God wants us to “shine like stars in the universe.”  That means that His light will always overpower ours, but our light will be brightest when our surroundings are darkest.
• There is much evil and darkness in our world today so we ought to be shining brightly as children of God.
• A piece of paper or two on a desk doesn’t seem like much, but if you add another piece or two every day it isn’t long until the desk surface cannot be found.  That’s kind of the way it is when we allow small pieces of compromise to set on our heart and mind each day.
• While we may get used to the clutter of compromise, and even start to think it is a better system for us than integrity, it will eventually overcome us and render us ineffective if we don’t deal with it completely.
• It doesn’t matter when you think the “season” of sharing about God is for you, He wants you to be ready at all times.

Page 275 began with a beautiful star-filled sky greeting me on my way out the door this morning.  It wasn’t long, however, until I began to hear and see reports of the horrific attack that took place in Las Vegas overnight.  While my day was a somewhat normal Monday, those directly affected by the shooting occupied much of my thoughts and prayer time throughout the day.  So instead of the normal rundown of my day and the lessons seen in it, today’s page is dedicated in prayer, and as a call to prayer, for the families mourning the loss of a loved one, those injured and in need of physical healing, those in shock and disbelief who need an emotional healing, and a nation that is in need of a spiritual healing before we decide that destroying one another is normal.  And so I post some words and a photo I shared earlier today and I ask each of you to “keep on praying and never give up.”

No words, or even prayers, seem adequate in response to the horrific attack in Las Vegas, but silence seems even more inadequate so I pray for those who mourn, for those who are injured and in need of healing, and for a people in shock and disbelief.

Page 274 was a good day — partly because it was Sunday, partly because I had the opportunity to preach this morning, and mostly because it is a day that the Lord has made!  Last night was a rather restless night as I think I’m trying not to come down with some bug or the other, or at least trying not to admit that I am.  While the night didn’t help a lot with sleep, I was able to run through the main points of my sermon many times throughout the night.  This morning’s sermon came about as I was working on a different sermon — the sermon I now plan to share next week.  As I was reading, I came across the text where Paul writes about Timothy serving with him as a son with his father.  It made me start thinking, both about how Timothy served and about how a child of God ought to serve with their Father.

In keeping with my style of preparation, the outline spelled out the word “CHILD” as we considered some lessons from Timothy’s life and how God would have us serve.  Here are the main points.  The child of God serves . . .

• Cheerfully
• Helpfully
• Intentionally
• Lovingly
• Decisively

After the worship gathering, the Sunday school class spent time discussing God’s calling of Abram, the faith of Abram to follow God, and our often-present battle with doubt.  We stopped for lunch on the way home then spent the early part of the afternoon relaxing.  I managed to take some flower and hummingbird photos from the front porch before we decided to drive down to Potato Creek for a family walk . . . and to see what photo opportunities we could find there.  The bald eagles weren’t at the area where we had normally seen them, but midway through our walk I could see two of the perched in a tree all the way on the other side of the lake.  I did manage to zoom in and get a few half-decent photos, but nothing like when I can set up the camera almost underneath them.  Today’s photo as taken as we looked out over the lake from along the trail.  The sun was still fairly high in the sky but the cloud cover gave an appearance similar to sunset.  I always find it peaceful when the clouds and sun are able to reflect off of a still body of water.  I suspect the degree of stillness that I am able to maintain in my life is a determining factor in how well I reflect the presence of God.

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

• Some days are easier than others to “rejoice and be glad in it”, but God wants us to do so every day.
• When one part of the body suffers, the rest of it has trouble sleeping. 🙂
• Restless nights are best spent with the One who can calm the troubled seas.
• “Serving as a son with his father” probably sounds different to a 9 year old, a 19 year old, and a 90 year old.
• Some of my best childhood memories are of working with my dad.
• God’s child will serve cheerfully as we know we are serving the Lord.
• God’s child will serve helpfully as we live out our calling to help those in need.
• God’s child will serve intentionally as we set aside good intentions for real intention.
• God’s child will serve lovingly as we follow the example of Jesus, who showed the full extent of His love by both serving and sacrificing.
• God’s child will serve decisively as we commit to following Jesus no matter what.
• Faith will trust God in spite of your doubts.
• I best reflect the nature of God to the people around me when my inner spirit is at peace with Him.

Page 273 was a laid-back and restful Saturday.  I was able to sleep in and then, after a late Friday, I began my morning with prayer, coffee, and the writing of yesterday’s page.  As I wrote, I would periodically check on Susan who once again slept in even longer than I did.  We used to have a Saturday morning tradition where we would go to the zoo together.  Somehow that tradition has changed to Susan sleeping in until it is time for me to start lunch.  

Once the page was written, I turned my attention to going through the photos I took yesterday.  Most of what I do in the “processing” of them is to straighten them so the horizon is horizontal in the photo.  It seems like I go through times when I can shoot fairly level photos, then I quit paying attention and most of them end up with a “tilt” to them.  There are a lot of things that my cameras do automatically, but there are still many details that I have to pay attention to in order to capture the image I want.  Some of those details are correctable after the fact, but others aren’t.  Life tends to be a lot like that — a lot of details to try to keep track of with some of them correctable if we get them wrong and others leave a more permanent mark that changes the way life looks.

By noon, Susan was ready to wake up and it was time to fire up the pellet grill to start the bacon cheeseburgers for lunch.  As I worked on lunch, the air was filled with the sounds of birds singing joyfully as they raided the remaining seeds from the row of sunflowers.  Today’s photo may appear to be of a finch perched on one of the sunflower heads, but if you look closely you should be able to find a second finch busy plucking the seeds from the sunflower it has claimed.  After taking some bird photos, I spent some time going over the sermon outline for tomorrow while lunch was cooking.  After lunch the afternoon and evening was spent relaxing, sharing photos, and letting the sermon simmer.

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

• God says that the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.   We would do well to heed God’s instructions as we understand His knowledge of our need for rest.
• Traditions can be good, but not if they end up keeping you from what you really need.
• Balance in life is difficult, but it becomes nearly impossible if we let the less important details distract us from a level focus.
• Some things are more difficult to correct than others but God wants to make all things new when we turn everything over to Him.
• Even the things we can’t fully correct can be used by God to mold us further into His image.
• God wants the feasting upon His Word to be something we enjoy and something we are able to share with others.

There are times when some unknown trip-wire opens the floodgates in my mind and memories that I wish were erasable come flooding in to try to drown me in their lies.  For some reason, page 271 was one of those days.  Fortunately, God went ahead of this mental flood and used the combination of a stranger and a friend to remind me last night that even when others find no value in what I do, God uses the efforts of faithfulness in ways often unseen.

My workday was filled with a lot of the usual daily things along with great progress on two different sermon outlines and content.  After the building was ready for the day, the sky appeared as if the sun was about to set it on fire at any moment so I set up my camera to time-lapse record the sunrise.  As it turned out, there was a brief splash of color and then a thick blanket of clouds moved across the sky and kept the sunrise from exploding with the brilliant color I was expecting.  When I looked at the time-lapse video later, I was impressed by the beauty that was captured even when it wasn’t what I was expecting.

I thought I had finished up my “Living as the Lord’s Servant” series a few sermons ago, but God continues to put in my mind both characters and characteristics that are important as we learn from Biblical examples about how we ought to be serving.  While love is arguably the greatest identifying characteristic of a Christian, Christ-like love will always result in serving others according to their need.  It has been a long time since I have had two sermons in process in my mind at the same time — at least not in stages that I was aware of their development.  It was fun to see them come together and to also see the way they are connected — which is likely why they are being developed together.  In case you’re expecting more info about them, I will save the summary of each sermon for the day’s page of when I actually preach them.

After work, I went home and had a mid-afternoon lunch before spending some time unwinding and relaxing.  By early evening, I had managed to catch some new photos and a video of a hummingbird that has yet to begin its flight south for the winter.  The sky had almost completely cleared of any clouds, so we headed back down to Potato Creek for a family walk and to take some photos.  While most of the photos involved the lake and/or the setting sun, the photo on today’s page is of a milkweed seed head that has burst open to allow the seeds to carried away by both wind and critter.  I guess I chose this photo for today because it kind of brings my day full circle.  The discouragement from within the day seems to come from an uncertainty of usefulness or purpose, but the advance reminder from last night was about God carrying through the air some seeds I have planted in the past until they found just the right person to settle into and grow into a blossom of encouragement in his life — and then back into mine.  

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

• Not all days feel like productive days — that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not.
• Sometimes God will use someone to encourage you in advance of your need because He knows you will need it.
• It is never a bad time to let someone know how they have helped you.
• Just because something isn’t what you expect, it doesn’t mean it can’t have a beauty of its own.
• My plans often get changed when I spend time listening to God.
• The Bible is full of people who had flaws yet still lived as the Lord’s servant.
• You can’t love like Christ without serving like Christ.
• God expects us to carry, and spread, the seeds of the gospel wherever we go.  Sometimes He has specific places for us to take it and sometimes He wants us to release it and allow Him to carry it on the winds to where it needs to be.

There were no stars visible to begin page 270 as the arrival of cooler weather overnight brought some light rain with it.  As I went about my morning prayer, cleaning, and building prep routine my mind seemed to focus a lot on hope.  Like many words, I think we’ve often watered down the meaning of hope so that it no longer has the power within us that it ought to have.  We have settled for a wishful thinking kind of hope instead of clinging to the hope which offers a confident expectation.  As I prayed for the children who would soon be in the building, I wondered if my requests were just wishful thinking or filled with a confident expectation — and what really determines which it is.

I suspect that many times we settle for wishful thinking because we are not willing to put in the effort required to have a confident expectation.  The hope that I have in Christ is a confident expectation because of a faith in Him that is both alive and active.  No, there is nothing I can do to earn the favor of God, but there is something I must do in order to have it — offer an unconditional surrender of self and accept Him on His terms.  It is my action, or lack of it, that is often the pivot point between wishful thinking and confident hope.  I can look at many things in today’s world, including the children who are in the building, and either have a wishful thinking hope that everything will turn out well or increase my confident expectation by actively being involved in the things that I can influence.  For years I have thought about and talked about the idea of leading prayer-based spiritual growth retreats, but the thought just hung out in the wishful thinking area of hope until I finally began to do the work necessary to move into the confident expectation that these retreats will take place.  Granted, they may, or may not, look exactly like I expect them to, but I now have a confident expectation that they will take place and be what God wants them to be.

Once the building was ready, much of the day was divided between sermon work, maintenance details, and retreat preparation.  Once the workday was over, I headed home to relax for a while before driving down to Potato Creek with my family to enjoy the beauty of the park.  The eagles weren’t out where they were visible, so we took a walk on one of the trails to enjoy the fall evening.  Today’s photo was taken during that walk as we found a heron with a stoic pose and steadfast gaze as he kept an eye out for his next meal.  I suspect that he had a confident expectation that he would eat because he had put himself in the right place and was prepared for what he would find.  After our walk, the western sky began to turn red as the sun finished setting for the day.  After a few photos, we called it a day and made our way home.

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

• While the clouds and rain may keep the stars from being visible to me, their light is not extinguished.
• It’s easy to find things to pray about and people to pray for if we pay even a little bit of attention.
• I think that there is so much despair in our world partly because the wishful thinking kind of hope has left many disillusioned.
• If you want to have hope in the next generation, invest yourself in them in some way.
• Wishing you were right with God will not make it so.
• Unconditional surrender to God will result in a confident expectation that He has made all things right between you and Him.
• Dreaming can be good and beneficial, but to be productive the dreaming must lead to proper action.
• Proper action is the result of prayer and listening to God — not just pushing forward your own agenda.
• I love the old hymn that says, “My hope [confident expectation] is built on nothing less, than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”  A lot of truth expressed in that line.
• A peaceful evening with family is a great way to wrap up a day.