Praise be Jesus Christ! Praise be His holy name. Praise Him who was, is, and is to come. Praise Him for His relentless pursuit of us! Praise him for His constant love and discipline. Praise Him always.
Thank You Lord for teaching us. Thank You, God, for putting up with us when we are cranky and forgetful and short sighted. Thank You for your sternness and gentleness exacted at the right time, place, and in the perfect doses.
Forgive us, Lord, for our stubbornness, our forgetfulness, our “getting ahead” of ourselves and our situations. Forgive us for our crankiness and our pouting. Forgive us, God!
Many at this time of year are focused on thankfulness, gratitude, family gatherings, tasty food. I am odd, I guess, as three words I seem to be led to contemplate are PREPARING, FILTER, and ENJOY. God is always drawing me out of myself and closer to Him in my own unique “language of Monica.” This often means that I need “bite-sized nuggets” to “chew” for a while. He knows that I often react instead of respond, and I always need a while to understand or accept His message. I am a constant work in progress.
The busy-ness of this season in life has my mind jumbled with ideas, to-do lists, grocery lists, prayer intentions – you name it, and it has crossed my mind! On a recent busy day, I was graced with noticing how God worked out a wonderful “coincidence.” He just lined everything perfectly, and I noticed! Later, during prayer, He seemed to remind me that He is always PREPARING a place, a time, a way for us to be with Him forever. In my conversations with other prayerful people, I have often heard “He goes before us”, but this moment made it real to me. He goes before us PREPARING for us to do His will!
When I took some time to reflect on this, I just wanted to thank Him, but all the thoughts going through my mind just got in the way. Then God placed a word of a prayer that I recently rediscovered on my heart – FILTER. I asked Him to help me FILTER everything through His Precious Blood. Help me FILTER my thoughts; help me FILTER my speech. Help me FILTER my actions. That word is something I am sure I will have to contemplate and practice!
Another recent conversation led me to “chew” on the word ENJOY. This holy conversation led to thanksgiving on my part because it was a reminder that when we share how God works in our lives, it brings us such encouragement. It was a gift. God seemed to place on my heart, “ENJOY! ENJOY My creation, My provision, and, yes, even My cross! ENJOY every season of life, even the end, especially the beginning, and always the growth and change and lessons in the middle.” I then picked up my Bible to Matthew 28:20 “…I am with you always…” He is with us, and He desires us to ENJOY what He has provided for us.
This led my brain to really look at the word ENJOY. Enjoy is a verb, meaning “rejoice, BE glad.” It means to GIVE joy, to TAKE delight in, to MAKE joy. Then my nerdy brain really kicked in, and I realized how odd a word ENJOY really is. It turns a noun “joy” into a verb. The verb seems to mean GIVE and TAKE and MAKE and BE joy! Is that not odd? It is a being verb and an action verb. It is for our contemplative (being verb) and our busy (action verb) seasons of life.
While most are contemplating gratitude and thanksgiving this week, I am begging for the grace to put into action all that God has revealed to me about PREPARE, FILTER, and ENJOY. May we all be granted the grace in every season to notice how He PREPARES places, times, and ways for us, to FILTER all that we think, say, and do through His precious blood, and to ENJOY all of His creation, provisions, and cross in every season.
What has God placed on your heart lately? Has He PREPARED something for you that you have noticed? Has He placed on your heart a word from a prayer? Has He sent you on a vocabulary lesson to research a definition of a word you have known but never really researched? Share what God is doing in your life!
Photo by Ave Calvar on Unsplash
