Page 141 was day one of a family vacation.  I’m thinking that may mean my daily pages are abbreviated to a daily photo and perhaps a few thoughts on the day and/or the photo.  We had originally planned on taking two days and driving down to Florida but found a good rate on flights, so we flew down.  This may have been one of the smoothest flights we’ve taken, as far as the process went.  It never felt like we were waiting very long at any point of the check-in, security, or boarding process.  

Today’s photo is of a “skimmer” in action.  These birds cruise the shoreline with open beak, skimming the surface of the water to scoop up an evening meal.  While these were skimming the surface, other birds were diving into the breaking waves hoping to catch their meal in a different manner.

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

• Sometimes even good routines need to change in order to focus on something different for a time.
• If  your focus is on the destination, a smooth journey is a bonus — the real reward is reaching the destination regardless of how the journey goes.
• God has provided food for the birds of the air but they don’t all get that food in the same manner — in fact, not all birds were created to survive on the same diet.  
• God made you to be unique as you serve Him and thrive in the environment He created you for.

After working late Friday night, page 140 began early with the sounds of Susan in a seizure.  It wasn’t a major one and didn’t last long, so we all went back to sleep for a while.  Once I woke up for the day, I turned my attention to writing yesterday’s page.  The rest of the day has been spent relaxing and getting ready for some vacation time with my family.  It made me think of the wise words I heard years ago about how to correctly pack for a vacation.  They said the process is simple.  Once you’re ready and just before you leave, you open up each suitcase and take out half of the clothes.  Then you open up your wallet and double whatever cash you had planned on taking.  🙂 I know, in today’s culture where everything is put on a card and very little cash is used, the instructions may need a little modification but other than that, it seems like sound advice to me.

Today was another day with no new photos, so the photo for today’s page comes from our family vacation four years ago.  They dolphins are fun to watch as they play in the Gulf of Mexico and along the intercoastal waterway.  Each sighting turns into a photo opportunity and a desire to see more.  

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

• A loved one in need motivates most people to action.
• Would godly love for all people change how we act toward them?
• If social media is any indication, I live in a nation full of angry people.
• Some people spend more time and effort planning for a short vacation than they do for eternity.
• If I respond in anger to things that make me angry, all I do is escalate the anger rather than share God’s love.
• Hateful responses to angry words will rarely change anybody’s mind.
• Peaceful words, like peaceful scenes, tend to attract people who want peace in their life.
• Having a glimpse of godly joy in others will almost always create a desire within you to taste of that joy yourself.

Friday was a long workday as expected, so page 139 is being written the next morning.  I finally slept all the way up to my alarm going off so I felt a little more rested as I got up and headed into work.  The first thing that got my attention as I left the house was the need for a jacket.  After two days of temperatures above eighty degrees, it was going to be a struggle for this day to make it out of the forties.  The moon was shining bright overhead but the clouds were beginning to gather in the western sky.  As I went about my morning cleaning tasks, the day began to arrive with increasing light.  The official sunrise time is early enough now that it occurs in the middle of my usual morning routine.  Daylight always makes me feel better, so I am happy to see it begin earlier each day — at least while I need to do the early morning cleaning.

Once the building was ready for the day, I spent some time correcting the prayer guide I had scheduled for the first week of June.  After writing it yesterday, I had somehow sent a different one to the office to be used for the June 4 bulletin.  Fortunately that was an easy thing to correct.  It was the last day of preschool for the school year, so I kept an eye on Susan while MJ was busy with the graduation tasks and ceremony.  Once the students and family members were gone, I went out to begin round one of the mowing for the day.  I had been watching the weather radar, as they were calling for rain, and it looked like I would have a couple decent windows of time between rains throughout the day to get all the lawn mowed.  After mowing what I could around the building without disturbing any of the school classes going on, it was time to head inside for a break to warm up.  

After a cup of coffee and some chocolate, I went outside to begin round two of the mowing.  I knew I would need to get fuel for the mower before finishing for the day, but it felt like rain was on the way so I decided to mow what I could and go get fuel during the rain chased me inside.  I had most of what I wanted to mow in the back field done when a light drizzle began.  It was light enough, and I was dressed warmly enough, that I kept mowing until the back play field was done and all I would have left for later was a little bit around the building and the front lawns.  As I pulled up to the garage to put the mower away during the rain, a friend was unloading some lumber for an eventual ga-ga ball pit on the property.  I helped him unload his truck and then as I went to back the lawnmower into the garage, it died.  I restarted it and moved it about two feet before it died again.  Yep, it was out of fuel in the doorway of the garage.  We pushed it into the garage and I went inside to warm up once again before going to get a late afternoon lunch and some fuel for the mower.

It was still raining when I got back from lunch so I began a few cleaning projects to start getting the building ready for Sunday.  With an eye on the radar, it looked like it wouldn’t be long before the rain would move through and I would have a clearing to finish the mowing.  Sure enough, a little before six the rain stopped and I bundled up and went out to mow.  I may have mowed for half an hour before the drizzle returned, but my snow shoveling jacket kept me both warm and dry as I spent the next hour and a half mowing in the light rain.  Dry, that is, until my final section of mowing took me along the edge of the woods and as I mowed under the overhanging branches, I brushed against them enough that they released all of the moisture they held right down my back.  If I was tired before, I sure was awake now!  After putting the mower away, it was once again back inside to warm up and then finish the cleaning and prep to get the building ready for Sunday.  All in all, it was a good productive day and while the rain may have dampened my clothes and body, it surely didn’t dampen my spirit.

With the day busy from beginning to end, I took no new photos although in my final warm up time in the office, a beautiful woodpecker showed up outside my window while I was caught with no camera in the office and not enough light for a photo if I would have had a camera with me.  Instead, today’s photo is one from Thursday as I looked out over the lake at Potato Creek on a sunny, eighty-five degree afternoon.  It represents the peace that I had, not only during that time at the lake, but also during the cold, rainy day of mowing.  It’s a peace that God puts within me as I trust Him so the circumstances of the day don’t have the power to remove it — only I decide if it stays or not.

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

• The weather is a good reminder that in life what you are experiencing now may not be the same as what tomorrow will bring.   
• While I don’t know the details of tomorrow, I do know the One who does — and I choose to trust Him.
• Mowing is nicer when it is warm and sunny but for me, it is still relaxing to spend that time with God even when it is cold and drizzling.
• There will be unpleasant times in life.  That doesn’t mean we have to become unpleasant people.
• We often reflect the attitudes that people have toward us.  It would be much better if we reflected that attitude God has toward us.
• True peace comes from our relationship with God regardless of our circumstances.

As expected, I was awake before the alarm went off so it was probably a wise decision to sleep last night and clean when I got up this morning.  The sky was clear when I went out to the truck on my way to work and the moon was shining brightly overhead.  With a long workday ahead tomorrow, my plan was to get today’s cleaning done then finish writing a prayer guide before heading back home.  The cleaning and building prep were routine with no surprises — just the way I like it. 🙂  As I spent time with God focused on the prayer guide, I settled on the topic of sacrificial service.  God calls each of us to serve Him through our service to one another and many times that service compels us to sacrifice something of our self.  

By mid-morning I had the prayer guide written and then formatted and scheduled it to be posted and sent out Memorial Day weekend.  Once I was done with that, I realized that I would be gone through Memorial Day and since Mondays are my usual day to write the prayer guides, I started on the next one instead of going home early.  As I thought about the prayer guide I had just written, the idea of body building came to mind for the next one.  And no, it won’t address how to increase your muscle mass or get your body into shape physically.  Instead it will focus our prayers each day on different aspects of how we ought to be involved in building up the body of Christ through the gifting and abilities God has put into our life.  With the early start, by the time this prayer guide was completed and scheduled, I had put in a full day of work and it was time to get some lunch and call it a day as far as work was concerned.

After lunch I decided to make a quick trip to Potato Creek to take a short walk and see what I could find to photograph.  It was rather windy so while I could hear many of the songbirds, the sound came from within the depths of the brush where I couldn’t see the source.  The large birds, however, seemed to be enjoying the wind.  The osprey and heron could be seen soaring on the wind currents as they would float one way and then the other with little visible effort.  Today’s photo is one of the blue herons gliding in front of a backdrop of tree foliage.  Without looking closely, he could easily blend into the background and not be seen by a casual observer.  It made me think about how we tend to soar through life.  Some people go out of their way to be noticed while others do everything they can to blend into their surroundings.  God’s desire for us is something different than either of those things.  He wants us to let our light shine in such a way that people see our good works and glorify Him!  He doesn’t want us focused on trying to get ourselves noticed and He doesn’t want us hiding our light under a basket.  He wants to be seen in and through us by all who would observe our life.

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

• For a guy who never liked waking up in the morning, I’m finding that I enjoy the peaceful quiet that an early morning can bring.
• My plans need to be written in pencil, if not in disappearing ink. 
• When my life is invested in seeking God’s plans, I find I don’t get so bent out of shape when my plans don’t work out.
• Sacrifice and service ought to be common words and practices among Christians.
• While physical training has some benefit, spiritual body building has value that extends to eternity.
• When we ride on the winds of God’s Spirit, we find that the work He does in and through us is completed apart from our effort.
• God’s desire is that He is seen by the people who observe us.

Page 137 began with a lot of cloud cover but the moon would peek out from behind the clouds on occasion as I made my way to work.  By the time I got to work the clouds were beginning to break up so I set up my camera to do a time-lapse recording of the sunrise.  While condensing 50 minutes of sunrise into 20 seconds, the clouds appeared to fly across the sky as they moved from the west and disappeared into the eastern horizon.  While it was recording, I did the daily cleaning and building prep as I prayed my way through the building.

Once the building was ready for the day and I had collected my camera to download the time-lapse video, I turned my attention to working on a prayer guide for the week after next as it needs to be ready a week early.  As it will be posted and published on Memorial Day weekend, I think I narrowed down the topic to something dealing with serving or remembering, or a combination of the two.  I also did some further work on outlining a workshop dealing with developing a lifestyle of prayer that I will be teaching this summer at at national student conference.  By mid-afternoon I had put in a full day and still needed to pick up some things from the store, so I headed for lunch and Sam’s Club.  After picking up the things I needed, I stopped by the river to take a short walk and shoot some photos.  Today’s photo is of a gosling who had been working on the grass in front of it.  It had a hold of a blade of grass or weed stem that seemed to be firmly attached to the ground.  I could see the gosling repeatedly tugging on it until finally it gave way and the gosling’s head flew up and its bottom hit the ground just as I snapped the photo.  You can still see that stem sticking out the side of the gosling’s beak and I chose the photo for today as a reminder of persistence.  Giving up can be a very tempting option, but it’s not a very Godly option unless we’re tugging at something that God hasn’t called us to.  God says the crown of life is given to the faithful — to those who have persevered to the end.  Following God and His ways is rarely the easy path through life, but through persistence it is the most rewarding path.

Being a Wednesday, I normally would have gone back to work and waited for the building to clear out so I could do the cleaning and prep to have it ready for tomorrow.  As I left the river, my energy level was near zero so I decided to call it a day and go in early in the morning since I’ve been waking up early each day anyhow.  I rested a little bit at home before taking care of a couple projects that needed done and then worked at getting the air conditioner going with the hopes that the bedroom will be more comfortable as I try to sleep tonight.

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

• Sometimes it appears life isn’t moving at all until you look back and can see glimpses of where you’ve been.
• When I set my mind to having a lifestyle of prayer, I find many things to pray about.
• If I don’t set my mind to a lifestyle of prayer, I rarely see the things I ought to be praying about.
• Honoring those who have given their life serving others is not just an American idea, it is God’s idea.
• Discouragement often leads to giving up when persistence is needed.
• Encouragement goes a long way toward helping a person persevere when times are difficult.
• Sometimes it is important to know if the timing of your plans is your timing or God’s.  Setting aside my timing to do something later isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Setting aside God’s timing to do something later is not good.
• Sometimes a little work when you’re weary can lead to better rest that is needed.

I’ve had a few good nights of sleep but I’m not sure I’ve caught up from too many restless nights in a row as I find myself running out of energy before the day ends.  Even with sleeping well, I am finding myself awake before the alarm goes off each morning so I’ve been heading into work a little earlier than usual.  Page 136 found me awake early and headed to work under the bright light of an egg-shaped moon.  There were a lot of patchy clouds on the horizon so I expected a beautiful sunrise to greet me later in the morning.  As I cleaned the building and took out the first load of trash, the patch clouds had built into a thick layer of clouds covering the entire eastern sky.  The clouds hung around for a few hours so the sunrise I had expected never appeared — at least not in the manner I had hoped. 

Once the building was ready for the day, I spent some time writing out yesterday’s page as I was too tired last night to do so.  I’m starting the writing of today’s page early this evening, so hopefully I get it finished before I decide my mind is finished for the day.  Not that I suspect it makes a huge difference when it gets written, but my mind is more at ease if I can be consistent in the process.  After posting yesterday’s page, it was time to switch hats from writer to accountant.  The rest of the workday was spent crunching numbers, balancing books, and catching up with the correspondence from the missions that the church helps to support.  

By mid-afternoon, my accounting work was done and it was time to get some lunch before heading home.  At home I followed up on some requests for information about the books I have written, then sat down for a while to allow my mind to relax.  Eventually I got up and went out to run the rototiller back through the garden space.  After last night’s work of breaking through the hardness that had developed over the winter, this tilling brought the soil to a point of softness so that it was ready to be planted in.  Once the garden work was finished for the day, I fired up the pellet grill and made some bacon cheeseburgers for dinner.  Now I’m wrapping up the day with the writing of this page and will likely head to bed early and pray for another night of good sleep.  With no new photos taken today, I chose one from Sunday evening for today’s page.  When we arrived at Potato Creek Sunday evening, the birds were filling the air with the joyous sounds of their singing.  While most of them were  hidden in the brush or didn’t stay still long enough to photograph, this cardinal sat in the evening sun long enough for me to snap a picture of him.  He flew off shortly after this photo was taken but he continued to sing even while avoiding being seen.  It seems like many people are just the opposite — we are more concerned about being seen that we are about singing songs of praise. 

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

• It takes more effort to catch up on necessary sleep than it did to lose it.
• Things change.  Sometimes they change in ways that we like and sometimes they change in ways that aren’t what we wanted.
• It is important to realize what changes we have influence over and what changes we don’t, otherwise we get worked up over things that we can’t really do anything about.
• Just because something doesn’t look like you expected it to doesn’t mean it didn’t happen like it was supposed to.
• If you want a wider view of the kingdom of God, spend some time reading newsletters from missionaries and correspond with them.
• Hard ground can be made soft again and through the power of God, hard hearts can be made soft as well.
• Our songs of praise ought to be noticed by the people around us even if they don’t notice us.

Page 135 was a Monday so it was back to the weekday routine.  As I walked out of the house to head to work, the moon was hung above me in a blanket of stars as they all illuminated the night.  With a camera that can zoom in and capture some of the details and texture of the moon, I find myself more fascinated with it than ever before.  I suppose it also helps that a clearly visible moon is a good sign that the sky will be clear for outside work during the day.

As I went through the building in the quietness of a Monday morning, I was reminded of God’s presence and the stillness it can bring.  While God has made it clear that He does not dwell in a temple made with human hands but in the temple of His creation, there are places where God’s presence within me seems more noticeable.  For me, an empty church building has always been one of those places.  As I cleaned, I remembered a country cemetery near where I grew up which had a small chapel building that in those days was always open.  Periodically, when I had the time to get away, I would ride my bicycle several miles so I could just sit in the chapel and acknowledge God’s presence in me.  Probably an unusual practice for a pre-teen boy, but I’ve rarely been accused of being normal. 🙂

Once the building was ready for the day, I turned my attention to what would become my task for most of the day — writing.  I began by writing the page from the day before as it seems I keep finding myself finishing the day too tired to write out the day’s page — thus Monday’s page is being written early Tuesday morning as well.  After the previous day’s page was written, I turned my attention to the prayer guide for next week as well as starting to outline one for the following week as I work ahead for an upcoming family vacation.  As I spent time with God, I ended up reworking a previously written prayer guide for next week.  The focus will be on praying about the missions ministry of the church.  While the local prayer guide will list the specific missions that the Deer Run congregation helps to support, the published prayer guide will have people praying about the same things for the missions they help support and/or for missions work in general.  Most of the days will focus on things that Paul asked people to pray about for him as he would go about sharing the good news of Jesus — things like effectiveness, boldness, and wisdom rather than safety and prosperity.

By mid-afternoon my workday had been filled with a good variety of tasks and it was time to get some lunch and head home.  After relaxing for a short while, I mowed the lawn and then worked at tilling the garden area so it can eventually be planted.  It is amazing how quickly a time of inattention to the ground can cause it to become hardened and difficult to work with.  My first pass through the garden with the rototiller was doing little but scratching the surface, the ground was just so hard.  I ended up going over the entire thing about six times and with each passing round, the soil became softer and less difficult to till through.  It was almost as if the ground had never been worked before, yet I know that ‘s not the case.  Just last fall the ground was as soft as could be following a growing season that produced a great crop as the ground was cultivated throughout the summer.  It’s that regular cultivation and working of the soil that keeps it soft and receptive to the nourishing rain.  Without regular attention, it is not long before the surface crusts over and soon the hardness settles in deep.  If you think about it, that is pretty similar to our spiritual life.  We need to cultivate our spirit with the tools of prayer and God’s Word on a regular basis to keep it soft and able to bear much fruit.  Neglecting the soil of our soul only leads to a hardness which eventually creates more work or even ends the ability to grow.

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

• Observing is important.  Knowing what your observation means is wisdom.
• How bright are you?  I’m not asking about your intelligence, but rather how well do you reflect the light of Jesus?
• While God’s presence dwells within the heart and soul of each believer, there are places that can help us be more aware of His surrounding presence.
• Sometimes being still in the presence of God requires effort on my part and sometimes I just find myself surrounded by His presence in a way that requires stillness.
• Every believer in Christ is called to be a missionary — a sharer of the good news of Jesus.
• We partner with those called to a life work of sharing the gospel through both our giving and our prayers.
• Prayers that are powerful and effective for others are prayers that are centered on what God desires.
• Hardening of the heart can take place in a much shorter time than most people imagine.
• Cultivating your spiritual life on a regular basis can keep your  heart from becoming hard.
• A hardened heart isn’t impossible to restore, it just takes a lot of time and work by both us and God.

Page 134 was a great day spent with my church family in the morning and my “family” family the rest of the day.  Our Bible School class finished up the book of 2 Thessalonians as we looked at Paul’s instructions to not only stay faithful until the return of Christ, but to keep working.  Not only did he instruct the Christians to pay attention to their personal conduct, he commanded them to warn their fellow believers who were disruptive, lazy, and/or unwilling to work.  In the church body here on earth, there is a job for everyone even though not every job is for everyone.  It made me think of my daughter who puts the communion cups in the trays and inserts the prayer guide into the bulletin each week.  Yes, she has vast limitations and a long list could be created of things she can’t do, but that doesn’t keep her from doing the things she can do.

After the Bible study class, our morning worship gathering included a message by David from the book of Ruth.  While the written story of Ruth is not long — contained in the four chapters of the Bible book which bears her name — the result of the story impacts the life of every follower of God since.  As the great-grandmother of David, king of Israel, she is one of the women listed in the genealogy of Jesus recorded by Matthew.  Her life, her pursuit of God, and her obedience to Him continues to bear fruit to this day.  The sermon looked at three character qualities that were a part of who Ruth was, that we would do well to adopt as a part of who we are as we seek to live a life that bears much fruit.

Ruth was:

• Persistent in Friendship:  When given the opportunity to leave her mother-in-law, Ruth clung to her and persisted in staying by her side through whatever would come their way.  Naomi was bitter, discouraged, perhaps even depressed — not qualities that make it easy for anyone to stay by her side.  Yet Ruth followed through with her commitment to not only stay by Naomi’s side, but to not let the circumstances they each faced become contagious.  In a society were everything, including relationships, seems to be disposable, we would do well to persist in the friendships that God has brought us into.
• Diligent in Service:  Not only was there a persistence in the friendship, but Ruth was diligent in serving the needs of Naomi as best she could.  While many would say that Ruth’s need to work in the manner she did was the result of the lack of a “safety net” for people like her and Naomi, I believe an understanding of God’s law shows that what she did was an example of the “safety net” in action.  No, there wasn’t a program set up where they could simply be given their food for the day, but God had commanded that those who needed food would be allowed to gather whatever grain was left behind after the initial harvesting of a field.  It made me think of the verse we looked at in Sunday School that says, “Anyone who is unwilling to work, shall not eat.”  Yes, God’s “safety net” required work by those needing help, but Ruth was diligent in the work required so that the needs that she and Naomi had were met.  In a society where we expect so much to be provided, we would do well to work with our hands and be diligent in service as we meet our own needs and the needs of others through the provision that comes from God.
• Humble in Attitude:  Bad attitudes are easy to come by and can be highly contagious.  Humility is one of the few things that can overcome a bad attitude and even prevent the onset of one.  As you read the book of Ruth, you find that Ruth has chosen to follow a woman that has developed a bad attitude as the result of hard times.  Yet in the face of Naomi’s discouragement and bitterness, Ruth chooses to humbly submit to the teachings and instructions of Naomi about the culture they now live in.  While it is likely Ruth had little idea of what she would face when she followed Naomi back to Israel, instead of quitting and running back home, she faced each day with an attitude of humility.  It was her attitude and her character which got her noticed in a good way — a way so good that it not only landed her a redeemer for the situation she and Naomi faced, but it landed us a Redeemer from the bondage of sin that we face.  In a society that is filled with the loud shouts of pride, we would do well to take on a deliberate attitude of humility as we submit to one another.

After the church service, I went to lunch with my family and then we made our way to the farm to visit my mom and dad.  It was good to see mom doing so well after last weekend’s hospital stay which resulted in getting a pacemaker put in.  My sister and one of my brothers and their families stopped by while we were there and it was good to see them as well.  After our visit, we made a quick stop at Potato Creek to take a walk, which almost always includes a few photos.  Today’s photo seemed like the perfect one to include on the Mother’s Day page as the mother goose took her young out for a swim.  It had been a good, but long day.

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

• It is possible to care about a person and still have expectations of effort from them.  In fact, if we don’t expect effort, we may not care as much as we think.
• We’re not all called to do the same work, but we are all called to do the “work created in advance for us to do.”
• Bearing fruit is a natural part of what a Christian does — or at least it should be.
• Some people are easy to love — some not so much.  Our responsibility isn’t to make them more lovable, but to be persistent in our friendship.
• Serving others can often be more work than we think we signed up for.  Our responsibility is to be diligent in service anyway.
• Submission is often viewed as a “dirty word” in our society.  Our responsibility is to live with humility that practices the act of submitting to one another.
• Family time is valuable.  If you don’t make time for family now, one day you won’t be able to.