Page 160 ended up being focused almost entirely on writing.  I began the workday with a quick trip through the building to just look and listen for anything that may be out of place or needing attention.  With everything appearing as it should, I turned my attention to further work in the devotional book I am writing.  My plan was to spend a good part of the morning writing, take a break for lunch, and then do some cleaning and prep to get the building ready for Sunday.  It sounded like a good plan, but it didn’t exactly turn out that way.

There are times when I settle in with God and get into a writing zone such that it becomes difficult to even come up for air.  Today was one of those days.  It has been a while since I have maintained such a focus on writing, but I think the topic of living free also contributes to finding myself in that zone.  One of the daily topics I wrote about today was living free to live by the Spirit.  When we are baptized into Christ, God says that He forgives our sins and gives us the gift of His Spirit.  In that moment we are set free, but it is supposed to be a freedom to live by the Spirit whom God has placed within us and not a freedom to simply do whatever we want.  It is God’s Word, His perfect law, that gives us freedom as we live by the power of His Spirit.  We know it is God’s Spirit within us that we are living by because we can test that Spirit against the very Word of God as revealed to us through Scripture and the life of Jesus.  

By late afternoon, I did finally come up for air from my writing and decided to just do an initial cleaning and prep of the building and then come back to work early Sunday morning to finish it.  With a tired mind and a work day on the calendar for tomorrow, I decided I needed rest and since I wasn’t sure what all the work day will entail, it seemed wise to do the final cleaning after they are done.  It was well past lunch time and too close to dinner time, so I went home to relax and went through another day’s photos from our recent vacation.  After dinner I went outside to try to photograph the hummingbirds that stop by but they weren’t willing to stay put long enough for a decent photo.  Instead, I shot some photos of the flowers around the yard and today’s photo is of a trio of buds on one of the rose bushes.  It reminded me that we all start somewhere and are designed by God to grow from something small to something that produces much fruit and beauty.  Each to these buds contain the potential to have the full beauty of a rose blossom as it grows and reveals what God has already placed within it.  When we live by the Spirit, we too have the potential for the full beauty of maturity in Christ as we grow and reveal that which God has already placed within us.

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

• Plans are great.  Flexibility and listening to reasons to either keep or change those plans can be even better.
• Some things are difficult to begin but even harder to stop once you get going.
• When I am in a mode of listening and writing, I find that I’m most productive if I just keep going.
• “If the Son has set you free, then you shall be free indeed” is a great truth, but it has the greatest usefulness when we understand both what we’ve been set free from and what we’ve been set free to.
• God’s Word tells us to test the spirits so that when we live by the spirit, it is His Spirit we are living by.
• God’s Spirit within us fills us with great potential that is only released as we grow in Christ.
• Our growth ought to be about revealing that which is within us, not about making our self known.

Page 159 was another beautiful day with a sunny sky and pleasant temperatures.  It actually started out rather cool for a summer morning, so after doing my morning walk-through I spent much of the morning working on my next devotional book project.  Some of the daily topics I wrote pages for today in the “Living Free” theme were living free from captivity, living free to be generous, and living free by God’s pardon and proclamation.  As I thought about how God helps us to live with freedom in the presence of our enemies, through gazing into His perfect law, God’s pardon and proclamation really stood out to me today.  

As a child of God who has had our sins washed away by the blood of Jesus, we are able to live free because of the full pardon that God has issued.  This is more than just an overlooking of our transgressions against God.  God’s pardon means that our slate is wiped clean.  Our records are expunged of any wrongdoing and God views us through the holiness of His Son.  But this isn’t a secret pardon that is known only by God and the individual.  No, God proclaims our pardon and makes known to the world that all who would come to Him will find forgiveness and hope.  Satan himself can surround us in a spiritual battle yet we are still able to live free because God has proclaimed our pardon.  The accusations of our enemies have no barbs with which to stick with us because God has made it known, even to our enemies, that He is leading the captives free.

As the outside temperature warmed up, I took a break from my writing to go out and enjoy the sunshine as I took care of some work on the church property.  With school out for the summer, now is the time to spray some weed killer in a variety of areas while I don’t have to worry about children getting into the sprayed areas.  This provides a longer term solution to what otherwise becomes a regular task of keeping the weeds and grass from causing an unsightly appearance in a variety of areas.  When I went out to mix up the spray, one of the deacons was working at patching some sidewalk areas where the concrete had broken up from the winter freeze and thaw cycles.  God has indeed blessed me with a few servants in the church who are willing to do what they can when they notice things that need done and I am very thankful for them.

After roaming the property and using up all of the spray mix that I had, it was time to call it a day and head home.  At home, I warmed up a late lunch and then spent some time relaxing as I went through another day’s photos from our recent vacation.  The main thing I do as I go through these photos is straighten them so the line of the horizon runs level.  I work hard to try and take photos with the camera held level to the horizon, but I still find I am often paying attention to the subject of the photo and not to the positioning of it.  Sometimes we all need a regular time when we can realign our life to the straight edge of God’s Word.  Often it is our preoccupation with our daily tasks that keeps us from paying complete attention to the alignment that we ought to be living in.  Reestablishing a proper standard on a regular basis will keep us from straying too far from the line we ought to measure ourselves against — the standard of Jesus.

Today’s photo is one I took this morning as I was in my office writing.  The trees and underbrush have leafed out so fully that I rarely see the wildlife outside my window during this time of year.  While they didn’t stay out in the open long, today I had a pair of cardinals stop by for a visit.  It is always nice to see them even when I know they continue to be present because I hear their songs throughout the day.  

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

• Being free isn’t always the same as living free.  God not only wants us to be free, He wants us to live free.
• God has not kept our pardon a secret.  He proclaims to us, and to our enemies, that we have been set free and raised up with a clean record in His sight.
• It is not our place, in fact it is quite wrong, to keep a person in bondage whom God has proclaimed to be free.
• It is important to consider the welfare of others as we go about our daily tasks.
• Good servants of the Lord serve because it is their nature, not because they have to.
• It is easy to get off center even just a little as we live life.  God’s perfect law exists to give us a standard to return to when we find our self not fully aligned with God’s will.
• Even if you can’t be seen, you ought to praise God in a way that others know of His presence.

Page 158 was a productive day even if I never made it to doing what I had planned for the day.  I started the workday with a walk-through of the building which is becoming my summer-time norm.  While I don’t expect to find anything out of the ordinary, it is better to do the daily walk-through and not find anything than to eventually discover a problem that I wished I had found earlier.  After going through the building and taking out some trash, I turned my attention to catching up on my mail and correspondence.  

My plan was to spend a good part of the day outside finishing up the weed spraying that I began yesterday.  There was still a lot of area to cover so I brought my larger sprayer from home in order to make the job take up less time.  As I finished up my morning tasks in the office, Susan went into a fairly extensive seizure so I spent some time helping her through it.  As she began the process of coming out of the seizure and letting the brain wiring reconnect, I changed up my plans so I could stay in the office with her while she rested.  Instead of working outside, I pulled up the file for the next 31-day devotional journal that I began writing last year and settled in to resume the writing process.  It has been a while since I have spent much time with this style of writing, but once I settled in with God and began the process, I soon found myself in what I call the “writing groove”.  This next book is titled, “Living Free”, and will focus each day on something the Bible says we are, or can be, free from.  Today some of the daily topics I wrote about were living free from anguish, free from burdens, and free to be content among others.  The original concept for this book comes from the instruction in James to “gaze into the perfect law of God’s Word which gives freedom.”  

I found myself writing well into the afternoon as I stayed in that “zone”, but eventually I came up for air and decided it was time to call it a day and get some lunch.  After lunch I went home and relaxed for a while before heading to the river with my family to enjoy a nice walk in the cool evening air.  Today’s photo is of a patch of daisies growing along the bank of the river.  They were beautiful to see and brought an element of brightness and joy to the riverfront.  I suppose there are some who would consider these the “he loves me, he loves me not” daisy, but I prefer to see them simply as reminders that God indeed loves me.

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

• Plans are often best written in pencil when you allow God to direct your day.
• It is better to pay attention to the possibility of potential problems than to miss real issues that can become big problems the longer they go unnoticed.
• Caring for a person who has special needs isn’t a chore when it is someone you love, but it does require a great deal of patience and flexibility.
• It is easier for me to change what I’m going to do than it is for Susan to get through a seizure.
• People are always more important than plans.
• God’s law is meant to give us freedom, not to enslave us.
• If we’re using God’s Word to enslave ourselves or others, we’re using it wrong.
• Gazing intently into the perfect law which gives freedom will accomplish its purpose only if we put into practice that which we see.
• There is no need to pull daisy petals to determine if God loves you . . . He does! 

Page 157 was a continuation of trying to figure out my summer work routine.  With a summer schedule that includes a week with the prayer ministry display at the North American Christian Convention in Kansas City and a week at the National Student Conference in Evansville, I’m not sure that a regular routine will actually be achievable.  But I work best with some semblance of order even if it will be interrupted throughout the summer, so I press on with at least an attempt at routine.  🙂  

My workday began with a morning walk-through of the building.  While I was writing yesterday’s page last evening, I remembered that while I had written the next prayer guide I had not yet formatted it or scheduled it to be posted online and sent out via email.  So, once I had checked on the building, I spent the first part of my morning getting next week’s prayer guide ready to be published.  After that task was complete, I spent a good part of the morning writing, and sending out, an Impact Prayer Ministry newsletter.  After the writing tasks were completed for today, I went outside with a sprayer fill with weed killer to work on some of the grass and weeds that had grown up along the sidewalks and in the cracks of the asphalt, as well as between the asphalt and sidewalks.  It was a beautiful morning to be working outside and I anticipate the results of my work will improve the appearance of the grounds once the spray takes effect.

After I used up all the weed killer I had, I spent the rest of the workday continuing to get things ready for the prayer ministry display I will have at some events this summer.  By mid-afternoon I headed to lunch and then called it a workday after finishing up the housing arrangements for my trip to Kansas City for the North American Christian Convention.  My late afternoon and evening were spent relaxing and working on some of the details for my trip to the National Student conference and the teaching I will do there.

With no new photos taken today, today’s photo is one from our recent family vacation.  The day was overcast and was building toward a storm that eventually moved in.  This was the first photo I took that morning and the result gives the appearance of a hazy morning fog coming off the water.  I really like the photo and the look that it has, but I used the word appearance on purpose.  It wasn’t hazy or foggy at all — at least not over the water.  No, the haze was the result of bringing my camera out of the air conditioned room into the humid warmth of the Florida day — it was my lens that fogged over, not the waterway. 🙂  Not everything is always as it appears.  The Bible teaches that the devil himself will at times masquerade as an angel of light.  It is important that we look beyond what appearances to understand what actually is.

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

• Even when you know it can’t be maintained every day, it can still be helpful to develop a good daily routine.
• One advantage of keeping a daily journal in this written fashion is that the writing of it often reminds me of tasks that are in process and still need completed.
• More importantly, the writing serves to remind me of the incredible work God continues to do in and through me.
• Sometimes tasks need done in a way that show immediate results.
• Sometimes the tasks that we do take longer to produce what is wanted, but they won’t produce anything until we do them.
• Advance planning can be fun when you keep in mind the results you are planning for.
• Not everything is as it appears.  Wisdom will look beyond appearances to seek the truth.

Page 156 was back to a somewhat normal Monday routine, except school is out for the summer.  While I was still woke up at my usual school-year wake up time, I was able to go back to sleep for a little while and feel more rested when I did get up and go to work.  While there was no need for the daily cleaning of the bathrooms and hallways, I did begin my day with a walk-through to make sure nothing needed attention following yesterday’s church service.  I took care of some minor issues and then turned my attention to the Monday routine of seeking God for direction regarding next week’s prayer guide.

As I spent time in Scripture and prayer, I considered several topics before finally settling on the topic of having God’s protection.  While there is precedent in Scripture for praying about our physical protection, God’s Word seems to put much more emphasis on praying about a protection of our faith, and of our soul, from the evil one.  In fact, Jesus tells us that we will face trouble in this world so the protection we pray for isn’t necessarily to avoid all trouble, but to remain faithful through the trouble.  When bad things happen to good people, it is important that our heart, mind, and spirit are protected from the lies of the enemy who wants us to believe God has somehow failed.  Yes, we pray that God would protect us from harm, and many times He does just that.  But we also pray that God would protect us from heading down a path of sin when circumstances aren’t what we expect and harm comes our way.

Once the prayer guide was written, I turned my attention to doing some preparation for the Impact Prayer Ministry display I will have at the North American Christian Convention in a few weeks.  After doing inventory and realizing my book supply was quite low, I ordered copies of all eight of the books I have written and published.  These books, along with prayer ministry information and resources, will be shared with individuals at the convention who will use them to grow in their relationship with God through prayer.  With eight titles now in print, the restocking of my supply for a convention can become rather costly but I continue to trust God to provide the resources that allows me to freely share what He has given.

Before I knew it, the afternoon was nearly over and I hadn’t even made it to lunch!  As I left work, I decided that it was late enough that lunch would be skipped as it wasn’t long before it would be dinner time.  At home, I relaxed a little bit before firing up the pellet grill to get some chicken started for dinner.  After dinner, I took my camera out on the porch and snapped a few photos of a hummingbird and the roses.  Today’s photo is of a yellow rose bud that captured my attention with its color and beauty.  

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

• For me, adjusting a routine takes time so I have to consider if the change will provide a benefit that outlasts the time required for it to take place.
• I don’t like surprises, so it is always good to find out early about things that need done. 
• It is better to check on potential problems and find none than not to check and discover later that there are problems.
• Being protected from physical harm is a good thing.  Being protected from spiritual disaster is an even better thing.
• You typically don’t know for sure what you have, or don’t have, until you stop and count.  That’s true for God’s blessings just as much as it is for books in inventory.
• Giving away books is not only something that God has convicted me to do, it has become an act of faith that helps me to grow in my trust of Him.
• God continually captivates me with both the simplicity and complexity of creation.

Page 154 has been a laid back, reflective kind of day.  I slept a little later than usual, but was still up early to put some more study and work in on the sermon I’ll share tomorrow.  As I worked, I would peek in on Susan every once in a while.  She was very content to be left alone so she could sleep the morning away while she had the chance.  By late morning Susan was ready to wake up, so I took a break from my study to help her get around for the day and then fired up the pellet grill to work on lunch.  

After lunch I relaxed for a while, then took my outline and Bible out to the porch to continue my work while watching for hummingbirds at the feeder.  As I worked on my sermon, every once in a while I would look up and a hummingbird would be at the feeder.  By the time I picked up my camera it would be gone, so I finally set up my camera on a tripod with a remote shutter release that I kept in hand.  Even with that, it was difficult to catch the quality of shot I would have liked because they just don’t sit still very long.  I guess it is another aspect of photography that I will have to study and experiment with to see if there are camera settings more beneficial than what I was using.

By late afternoon, I fired the pellet grill back up and put some pork chops on to slow cook for dinner.  As they cooked, I went back out to the porch to continue my study and bird watching combination.  Today’s photo is one that I captured as it perched on the feeder for a brief stop.  Even though the photos were few, it was fun to watch the hummingbirds come and go as they would dart in for a quick drink, then fly off at top speed into the midst of the pine trees.  While it was a joy to watch them, the variety of songbirds singing in the trees added to the beauty of the afternoon.  

By the time the pork chops were done, I packed up my camera and study material so I could enjoy dinner with my family.  Now as evening winds down, I will finish writing today’s page, wrap up my study, and get some sleep as I still need to go to work early in the morning to finish the cleaning and prep of the building that I didn’t get done Friday.

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

• For me, a sermon is never completed until I preach it . . . and even then it is only my part that is complete, my prayer is always that God continues to do His part in producing good fruit from it.
• One of the primary keys to being a person “after God’s own heart”, is to learn to guard our own heart.
• An unguarded heart can quickly lead us to great trouble.
• It is not good enough to guard part of our heart while leaving other areas of it unguarded.  The enemy who seeks to destroy and devour will always find the unguarded area.
• The more still I become, the more I’m aware of God’s presence in and around me.
• A guarded heart equips us to live as the Lord’s servant in the way we serve others.
• While there are certain tasks I need to do each week, I am very thankful for the great flexibility I have regarding when I do them.

Page 153 was back to work after a great family vacation, but it began with the writing of page 152.  With school out for the summer, I started my workday a little later than I had been during the school year but I was still awake at what has become my normal time before the sun is up.  There was a chill in the air as I went to work so I was glad I had a jacket in my office to put on as I began the mowing for the day  My day was a combination of mowing and sermon prep, which worked well as I was able to think through the sermon outline as I mowed and would use short breaks to jot down thoughts or look up scriptures that I would then meditate on during the next mowing segment.  

The sermon that I will share on Sunday at the North Wayne Mennonite Church will continue the series of character studies about living as the Lord’s servant.  This week the character we will consider is David.  When people think about the life of David, there is usually one of two stories that come to mind first.  What story from the life of David comes to your mind first?  Is it the story of David and Goliath or the story of David and Bathsheba, or do you think of something entirely different in the life of David.  It is interesting because the two stories are complete opposite in regard to how David handled each specific situation.  Yet it is not based on David’s success on the battlefield nor on his failures at home that we will consider his life as a servant of the Lord.  Rather, it is the commentary of scripture that states David was “a man after God’s own heart” that teaches us the most about how we ought to live as the Lord’s servant.  David’s life ought to be encouraging to every believer because in God’s eyes it is the desire of our heart that He notices whether we appear to rise with success or fall in failure.  

By late afternoon, the mowing was done and the sermon was simmering so I went inside to get the building ready for Sunday.  There were still a few people throughout the building so with a tiredness that was helped along by the warm sunshine upon my face and the hum of the mower engine behind me all day, I decided to call it a day and come back sometime before Sunday morning to do the cleaning.  Once I was at home, I relaxed for a while then pulled out my camera and went outside to photograph some of the flowers that were blooming around the house.  Today’s photo is one of those blossoms that caught my eye with its striking beauty and the subtle tinge of color around the petal edges.  It was just one more reason why I enjoy taking photos that remind me of the incredible creativity and wonder that God chooses to share with us.

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

• Waking up early each day of vacation to photograph the sunrise helped it to not be so difficult to wake up early on the first day back to work.
• An early summer Indiana morning doesn’t feel the same as an early summer Florida morning.  It is wise to know where you are and to be prepared for it.
• If you’re doing a task that safely allows your mind to wander, it is always good to let it wander toward the Word of God.
• Whether you feel like you’ve defeated a giant or feel like you’ve defeated yourself, God always examines the heart.
• Victory is only sweet if it is obtained through a heart that fully seeks God.
• Failure is never eternally fatal if you return to seeking God with your whole heart.
• Sometimes it is important to do specific tasks right away while other times it is more productive to wait.  Wisdom is knowing which course is right.
• God is never lacking in the creativity and beauty departments.  If we’re not noticing it, we’re probably not paying attention.