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January 20, 2013

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A God given but perhaps much overlooked ability in men

A MAN’S FOCUS

About a month ago, my husband asked me to drop some tool off at his job.  He is a contractor and works outdoors most of the year.  I got the tool and headed over to the house where he was working at the time.  When I arrived, for some reason I just didn’t feel like getting out of the car and so I parked right in front of the house where he could see me.  The front yard was small and he was working about thirty feet or less from where I was.  He seemed intent on his work, but shortly he looked up and looked towards the car.  I thought he had seen me, but immediately his head turned back towards his work.  A few seconds later, he again turned his head towards my car and then began to come down the ladder.  I assumed that he had seen me, but when he reached the bottom of the ladder he walked across the front yard, not fifteen feet from the car, to the other side of the house where his helper was working and he began to do something else.  Finally, in frustration, I dialed his cell number.  I watched as he fumbled around trying to get the phone out of his pocket while still wearing his gloves.  He still had no clue concerning my presence even though I was sitting in the car fifteen feet away from him.  “Hi honey, I’m right here in front of the house.”  “Where?”  He finally looked up and saw the car.

Even though I teased him about not seeing me, it caught my attention and for several days brought about deep wonderment and meditations about how focused he was on his work that he did not even see me just a few short feet away from him.  As he worked, I could see his mind calculating every necessary movement and piece of material to complete the required task.

Later that same week, he and I were sitting down after a hard day of work, enjoying the evening news.  I know that it was a Thursday night because on Thursdays the reporter for sports on our favorite channel always has a short report that he calls ‘Kevin’s 7.”  In it he shows clips of the best and worst moments in sports for the week.  As I watched men hurdling their contorted bodies straight into a crowd in order to grab a basketball away from their opponent or football players leaping over other players and plowing through heavily muscled blockers in order to reach the end zone, I realized what it is that makes men so good at what they do.

Women pride themselves in being multi-taskers.  Some men might do the same.  However, the strength of men is in their ability to focus completely on what they are doing.  In sports, it shows up as a total focus on that ball and whatever it is that they have to do with it.  The basketball player focuses his whole being on getting that ball into the basket.  The baseball pitcher focuses everything that he is on getting that ball over the plate in just the right spot to get a strike.  In work men are able to excel at whatever they do because their whole mind, and as a result their whole body, is in sync with what they are doing.  Women sometimes act as if they are superior to men because they are good at doing many things at once.  Maybe some men feel bad about that.  Doing many things at once is a necessity for a woman because of the kind of life she has, but thank God for a man who can channel all of his energy, thoughts and actions into what he is doing at any given moment and because of that ability can bring great things to pass.

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December 16, 2012

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An end of the year letter for 2012

This is the letter I will be sending to family and friends this year:

I started to write an end of the year letter a few weeks ago.  I even got several paragraphs written.  It has all become rather meaningless over the last few days in the light of the heart-wrenching tragedy being experienced by other families in Connecticut right now.  So, I hope you won’t mind if I send you a few paragraphs concerning some of the thoughts that come to mind over this tragedy instead of a letter about my life and about what my kids are doing these days.  We’ve been busy this year, we’re all fine, and that’s about it.

And God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.  Genesis 2:7

It is the breath of God that came into Adam on that day and the same breath that continued to breathe through Adam’s children and grandchildren on down through all the following generations.  Without that breath of life, he was just a lump of dust.  It’s the same with us, his many times great grandchildren and that makes us all the children of the living God.  So, what gives?  The events of this year, and especially the events of the past few days, make us pause and reflect on what on earth is going on.

You could say that there are many causes.  You could blame assault rifles and violent video games and the absenteeism of working parents who are too busy to take care of their children or to teach them the values that they themselves were taught, or were supposed to have been taught.  However, the fact of the matter is that many of God’s children either don’t know or have forgotten who they are.  They are not living like children of an awesome and loving king, God.  They’re living like derelict bums.  That is the tragedy.

It is as if the world has taken on two natures.  Part of humanity seems to be speeding towards God, hoping to find Him more each day, but increasingly more numbers are enticed by the glitz of a worldly life and are as a result speeding in the opposite direction, becoming more unlike Him every day.  To become more like God, one becomes more beautiful and more brilliant and if that’s true, then the opposite must also be true that those who are heading in the wrong direction are becoming more and more insane and hateful.  We can see that in the news on a daily basis.  Perhaps that is the meaning of “the valley of decision.”  We must all go through it and decide for ourselves which way we will go.

We have been greatly blessed in our family to have our parents and children and grandchildren finding God and seeking after Him.  We have discovered the immense power of prayer and how things absolutely change because of it.

Over the last few days, I can see how God grieves for the innocent lives snuffed out meaninglessly by one so selfish and callous.  Some call such people disturbed and say that there could be a personality disorder.  We have experienced a relative with what may have been called a “personality disorder,” but he didn’t pick up a rifle and shoot people.  In fact, through the power of prayer, he spent his last years on earth a happy and well liked person.  Prayer can do that.

This nation and this earth are in their valley of decision.  We need to turn our prayers to our greater family, the brothers and sisters with whom we share the same breath of life.  We are all brothers and sisters and it’s so sad that our brothers would hate us enough to want to kill us and more importantly that they would hate their own eternal Father.  They have no clue how much He longs for them to turn back to Him.  Above all, we need to maintain faith: faith that God will lead us if that’s what we’re praying for, faith that we will continue on this path, and faith that our children will find a way to reject this world’s evil when their day comes in that valley of decision.

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision …  Joel 3:14

So, may we all spend this season joyously in that we know who we are, gratefully because we know who it was that saved us, and yet a little bit more soberly since we know that there is yet so much lacking both in us and in our country.  Let’s pray that we all in our nation and our brothers and sisters in other nations will humble ourselves as it says so beautifully in the Scriptures:

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.  2 Chronicles 7:14

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November 21, 2012

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Thank God for the fleas

There is a line in “The Hiding Place” by Corrie Ten Boom that is never too far from my mind.  While imprisoned in a concentration camp, Corrie’s sister insisted that they had to thank God for the fleas.  Corrie had a hard time with that but did it a bit begrudgingly to satisfy her beloved sister.  When you think of their situation, that took a lot of faith to carry on and even thank God for the fleas.  Eventually, they discovered that the Germans did not want to enter their particular barrack because of those fleas and that is what gave them the little bit of liberty that they had to teach others the Word of God.  With hindsight, Corrie was so grateful for those fleas and for the opportunity to help others at a time when they were in such dire circumstances.

God sometimes allows ‘fleas’ in different areas of our lives.  To us they look like dirty little inconveniences, problems, difficulties and heartaches.  However, our thoughts are not God’s thoughts.  He sees things from His eternal viewpoint.  It’s in the valley of decision and difficulty that the purest metals are forged.  Our darkest days have the potential to bring the greatest growth.  No one would voluntarily choose heartache, but we are all capable, by faith, of thanking God for the fleas in our lives and then of waiting patiently for the time when (and if) He chooses to reveal the reason for them.

It’s easy to thank God for our abundance and our all too apparent blessings, but have we thanked God for the fleas lately?  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and if there are fleas in your life, remember that God loves you with an everlasting love and is always doing everything He can to bring you closer to Him.

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November 20, 2012

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The Trouble With Advertising

We are surrounded by a non-stop, twenty-four hours a day barrage of advertising.  As Christians, why should this bother us?  Or should it?  The purpose of our lives is to live a life of “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  Advertising is a constant distraction trying to grab our attention away from the things that are real and true and instead, get us focused on the natural, temporary things of this natural world.  The whole point of an advertisement is to get you to covet something enough so that you will spend whatever it costs to buy it.

Recently, I had a ridiculous conversation with my telephone company.  I called them to ask them to stop sending me advertisements for more of their products and services.  I felt it was a waste of paper and money.  Hohoho.  How silly of me to want to save them some money.  After a long and drawn out conversation, the woman finally agreed to stop sending the offending messages and then in the same breath she said that she noticed that I qualified for a special package.  She rattled off all of the wonderful services I could get with this package faster than I could take in what any of it meant.  Then she boasted that I could even get this wonderful package for three dollars less than I was paying at the moment!  I said that if they were really intent on receiving less money, I’d be happy to oblige them and promptly signed up for the package.  As soon as that transaction was complete, she started in on something else.   I said, “Enough!” and hung up the phone.  In the end, it saved me three bucks, but I had to wonder about the sanity of these people.

Then just the other day, I had to call my cell phone provider.  For some reason I was receiving daily ads on my cell phone since the time that I had bought it.  My daughter had the exact same phone and didn’t get any ads.  I had tried several times to have these ads either stopped or blocked from my phone at different branches associated with my provider.  Nothing seemed to work.  So, I called the main number.  After punching in the usual string of numbers required to ‘access’ my account, guess what was playing as I waited on hold for the next ten minutes?  Yes, more ads.  The woman was finally able to find the cause of the ads – an app that someone had downloaded onto my phone.  Who put it there?  Not me.  It’s not a smart phone and I don’t have any data plan.  I just use the phone for calls and texting.   Anyway, the case was solved and … no more ads.

I think that for the most part, we are so accustomed to ads that we don’t even realize that we are constantly being assaulted by them.  Yes, it is an assault.  It’s a war out there to buy your business.  No matter where you are, someone wants you to buy something more.  As a  frugal Christian trying to live an uncovetous life here on earth, I think that I try to ignore it all but lately it really does feel more like a knock down drag out assault.  It takes a consciously herculean effort to ignore it.

When I go into a store, I have to almost put blinders on in order to stay focused on the particular item needed.  Some stores, especially the ones that give you carriages (imagine that, carriages in a clothing store!), seem able to persuade consumers to buy bushels of extra items even though they entered the store for just one thing.  Maybe it’s in the layout or some kind of subliminal message in the music they’re playing.

I believe that it is an issue for Christians because it keeps us thinking about natural things, natural desires.  It makes us discontent with the things that we have and creates a constant desire to always have more, more.  Most importantly it takes us away from our true purpose here on earth, which is to live the God life, the life which He put inside of us.  It keeps us from connecting with that part deep inside of ourselves that would raise us up out of this earth’s natural crust and help us to discover that we are truly children of the Most High.

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September 25, 2012

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No Pain, No Gain

That phrase – no pain, no gain – has alternately either annoyed me or haunted me in my life.  Today I learned a lesson about it that is well worth repeating.  An elderly friend of mine recently opted for a hip replacement operation in spite of her advanced years and other health problems.  She survived the surgery, but instead of having hip pain, she now has excruciating pain in her lower leg (same one that was operated on) from tendinitis.  Today I stopped by to visit her after work and discovered her working with her therapists.  She was in such pain that she could not move the leg at all.  They put some ice on the leg and left for awhile so that it could take effect.  They didn’t want to give her more pain medication at that time.   After they had gone, I sympathized with my friend and we prayed a little and she told me about her troubles with the pain.  I wanted to take her pain away and relieve her agony.  She said that she had wanted to give up that morning but that the therapists wouldn’t let her.  We talked in such a vein for about ten minutes, with me offering her much sympathy and feelings of pity.

Then the door to her room suddenly opened and her daughter entered, having come 200 miles because of her mother’s post operative difficulties.  She was instantly all business.  She said, “Mom, you have to move that leg.”  She began gently moving the leg even though her mother was crying out in pain.  She said, “You have to move it yourself.”  Her mom answered, “I can’t move it by myself.”  To which her daughter replied, “You ARE doing it.”  I looked down and in fact she WAS moving the leg on her own.  Her daughter didn’t stop there.  She said, “Mom, you’re the one who wanted this operation.  You HAVE to cooperate with the therapists.  You have to go down to the gym to the therapy session tomorrow.”  She continued on and also spoke to me about her mother’s apparent stubbornness to do what the therapists wanted.

The whole thing seemed a bit harsh to me, but it started to work.  The situation brought to my mind that old saying about no pain, no gain and I realized that my attitude was actually hindering her from becoming well.  Her daughter, who is a nurse, insisted that if she didn’t start working on the therapy in spite of the pain, she would never get out of that wheelchair and in fact, if she didn’t start exercising both legs, the pain might worsen and the other leg might also start causing her trouble.  So, my friend is finding herself in the odd predicament in her elder years where the only way to get past her pain is to work through it in spite of it.

Although this seems like a tragic way to spend one’s older years, I realized that I shouldn’t look at it in that way.  It isn’t such an odd predicament at all because it happens to us throughout our lives.  It is an experience common to us all.  When I look back through the scenarios of my life, I can see that the times that were the most painful also brought about the most growth.  I learned a lot through those horrendous experiences and I am able to draw on them at times when others need some kind of encouragement in working through their own troubles.  The only way to get past the difficulties in our lives is to work through them, to maintain the struggle in spite of the pain it causes us.  We look at ourselves and see things that need to be changed.  Bit by bit, by exercising that bit of God’s nature that He placed inside of us, we begin to work through the pain and in the end it’s the only way that we become victorious.

We will stand up, but only if we fully cooperate with our divine therapist, day by day exercising our spiritual muscles.  We will walk again with God if we maintain the good fight until the end.  All things do work together for our good because they are brought into our lives by our infinitely loving Father who sees what we need so much better than we ever could.

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August 15, 2012

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Drought in the Midwest

The nightly news is replete with information about the record drought this summer.  It’s important to watch these stories because the reporters cover the story from a variety of angles. You can see many of the ramifications of such an historic summer.  As you watch the different segments of the story, it gives you ideas on who and what needs prayer.  The farmers, most definitely, but also the poor animals who are hungry and hot, the cows and the chickens.  Many professions are affected besides the farmers, including river boat pilots on the mighty Mississippi and other businesses that depend on it as a resource of some sort.  There is much to pray about this summer.

At the same time, we have to consider why this is happening.  Scripture tells us that the land is full of adulterers (it is) and that because of swearing the land mourns and the pleasant places are dried up (Jer 23:10).  In our modern world, our whole lifestyle is adulterated.  Even our crops are adulterated.  Scientists engineer the seeds that are sown in the ground and the companies that own the engineered seeds make sure that only their seeds are used.  God knows that the seeds were perfect and pure before all of the engineering.  He sees the bigger picture that the engineered seeds are not good for our bodies.  What is He to do?  He loves His creation but we are destroying, not only ourselves but others and the land with us.

The fertilizer required to maintain these engineered crops is running off into the ground water and in its turn is destroying the river that it runs into.  The mighty Mississippi carries this pollution into the Gulf of Mexico and vast regions of this beautiful body of water are now dead zones.  What is our Father to do?  You could say that instead of a green thumb, we have a black thumb that destroys everything that we touch.

God loves His creation the way He created it.  If you were God, what would you do to get the land to return to the way it should be?  So far, everything that mankind has tried hasn’t worked.  No one takes the naysayers and the protesters seriously.  Therefore, God HAS to send a strong message to the ones who are the most instrumental in its destruction.  What if the drought in the Midwest is actually a blessing?  An intial thrust of change in the way things are done?  God is certainly drawing attention to this most critical area of our country and showing us the value of this rich farm land.  We need to return it to its pristine beauty of only a few short centuries ago.  It is entirely possible to reverse what we have done to the land.  God always gives us a way out.  He tells us multiple times in the Old Testament that if we turn our hearts to Him, He will hear and heal our land.

God’s way is the perfect way.  His garden was the perfect one.  We can turn back the clock of destruction by turning back to our Father and letting His way be true.

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July 14, 2012

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God is good.

God is good.  When we were children, we recited that three word phrase like little robots, smiling up at the person requiring us to do so (or perhaps staring fearfully at that person!).  It takes a lifetime of experience to find out that it is absolutely so.  God is infinitely kind and gracious and good.  Everything that He does is good.  He only allows good. He is only good all the time.  You can say it many ways and sometimes you need to say it a lot in order to understand how deep it goes.  A lot of people may say that God is good out of one side of their mouth and then with the other side they accuse Him of all the evil in the world and all the misery that they see around them.  God, why this and why that.  However, even so, God is only good and that is true all the time.

We only have to open our eyes.  When our many times great grandfather Adam sinned, he immediately forgot God’s goodness and hid from God.  Why was he so fearful?  God had not changed.  The only change was Adam’s sin.   Since that time, God has been forced into the position of being apparently overbearing and even scary at times in order to make man keep the commandments and do good.  Mankind most of the time won’t do it unless there’s something to be afraid of.  In spite of all of the wars, famine and trouble, God is still good one hundred percent of the time.  For each individual living on this earth, He is always thinking of ways to get that individual to return and come back to Him.  He knows that the person’s eternal happiness depends on him  returning to his Father, so He is creating situations in each person’s life to help that person to return to the place where he/she will be blessed.  Some people are not listening and will not do it in this lifetime.  God still doesn’t give up.

God is like the best mother.  A true mother will never give up on her children.  She loves them unconditionally and prays always for their well being.  She will go to her grave at times praying for them and always wishing them the best.  She can find something to love even in the unlovable.  I learned this at my mother-in-law’s funeral.  Her eldest, and most rebellious, son stood up and spoke for a few minutes and he talked about his most precious moments with his mother.  Knowing her, I knew that in spite of his frustrating and uncanny ability to alienate absolutely everyone, she loved him and saw goodness in him.  He made her laugh.

God is like that kind of mother’s love.  He loves each one of us unconditionally, but yet He knows when we are doing things that are hurting our eternal happiness and He creatively goes about leading us into situations that will help us to change that characteristic or that habit.  Yes, God is good.  He is wonderful.  I see His hand in little situations in my life that I thought were annoying, but in the end I find out that those were the situations that brought about the most growth in my life.

A little example of that happened to me last week.  I’ve been trying to pull off a refinance all summer long.  Dealing with the banks these days is completely frustrating and many things have happened along the way.  The other day I was trying to fax some documents to the refinance company and my fax machine was not working properly.  I tried everything and still it kept spitting out error notices, seemingly just to aggravate me more.  Finally, I realized that there was no way on earth that it was going through and so I decided to drive over there and drop the papers off.  As I drove over there, I began to think about a recent prayer where I said that I wanted to stop being such a big complainer.  Ka-ching!!  Wow!  This was a perfect situation to try out my new resolve to stop complaining!  Up until then I was complaining big time about my wasted time and the wasted gas, the frustration, etc.  The new realization brought a smile to my face.  As I paused at a stop sign, my phone rang – it was the mortgage secretary saying that the faxes (probably a pile of them!) had finally come through.  Yes, God is good and He just wants us to turn back to Him.  He works overtime in each of our lives to create situations so that we will get the message and change.

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June 22, 2012

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Who is my neighbor? Who is my brother?

Luke 10:25 – 29 And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?  He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?  And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.   And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.   But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?

We all love the answer Jesus gave, the story of a  man who was injured.  The religious people passed him by and only a Samaritan man, who was considered unworthy, stopped to help.   The good book also says that God gives to all life and breath and he has made of one blood all nations of men.  He has also decided when and where they would live on this earth.  Why?  So that they would have the best chance that they could possibly have to find God.  (Ac 17:25 – 27)

So, who is my neighbor?  Who is my brother?  When we were children, in our all white neighborhood, we used to tell Polish jokes.  We also used to make fun of certain other nationalities.  Then I began to teach English to a variety of foreign people.  Over the years of my career, God has allowed students from almost every nation to sit in my classroom.  There have been multiple misunderstandings due to differences in culture, but as the years go by meeting students from all over the world has become  a treasure to me, a wonderful lifetime lesson in finding out who my  brother and my neighbor are.  Over and over I had to face the very people that I used to make fun of.  As children, we sometimes would insult one another by calling one another a certain race of supposedly small people in Africa.  Then one day I found myself face to face with a student who came from that very tribe, which is properly called the Batwa and whose people are lovely and actually not all that small.   I had to admit to God that I had been prejudiced and spoke about things concerning which I had no knowledge.

After many years of such experiences, God has allowed me to see his nature in all of my wonderful students.  At times they don’t get along.  Their cultural differences are too great in subtle ways that they don’t recognize and sometimes won’t admit even when someone points it out to them.  The Hispanics are quick to answer and the Asians prefer to wait a moment.  Is either one wrong?  No!  They are just different.  Imagine if God’s world were only like Oz, everything just green.  It would look lovely, but think of all the other colors that we wouldn’t even know that we were missing.  Our God is a great God.  We are created in His image.  His image is not just flat or one-sided.  God has an infinite number of exquisitely wonderful qualities that are displayed in His creation.  If we could begin to appreciate those differences in each other and celebrate them, we would not only get along a whole lot better, but also we would begin to know our Father and Creator.  We would become rich in our experience and wisdom.  We’d really learn to live Jesus’ words about loving our neighbor.

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June 20, 2012

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Trust Me!

The last few months have been quite trying for my husband and I.  We own a small rental property and the first thing that happened was that there was a flood in the basement of that building.  It ended up costing quite a bit of money to have someone clear out the main drain of some tree roots that had grown into it.  They were not able to clear it completely and there is still work to be done.  Then a week later my daughter, who lives on the third floor of that place, called at 11:00 pm crying and saying in a trembling voice, “Mom, the house is on fire.”  Wow.  That was a terrible thing to hear at any time of day.  We rushed over and in the end, the damage was miraculously little.  The fire department was truly inspiring.  Then about a week later, my husband’s mother passed away.  It is hard to express the emotional experience of losing her and of dealing with his sometimes troublesome family.  She was a lovely lady and we miss her in many unforeseen ways.  Following that, as the summer got under way, there was seemingly a mass invasion of ticks in our back yard and I got bitten a few times.  A couple of weeks after that, I got sick with an unconfirmed case of Lyme disease.

By that time, I was beginning to feel abandoned by my Father and was wondering what in the world was going on.  It was hard to maintain a spiritual outlook through all of these situations, but in each difficulty I felt the Lord saying, Trust me.  Especially before we knew the limited extent of the fire, it was hard to calm my emotions and say, Okay, Lord, I trust you.  However, in the end each difficulty turned out to be a blessing.  You hear that a lot from people, but I can only affirm that it is true.  We all know Ro 8:28 which says that “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called, according to his purpose.”  Trust me.  What does it mean?  It means more to me now than it did two months ago.  It means: I trust you Lord with my life and the life of my family members.  I trust you that no matter what happens, you are working constantly in my life.  Every minute of every day, you are leading me to situations that are helping me to get closer to you.

Years ago, my dad used to fly a single engine airplane sometimes.  On one particular occasion, I flew with him from a Midwestern state to the east coast.  As we started off that day, the weather was completely foggy.  My dad had his instrument rating, so we were able to carry on with the planned flight.  We took off in a total fog.  The fog continued for the entire flight.  We were completely surrounded by clouds.  I was terrified to be in such a soup without being able to see a thing.  Soon, I felt my muscles tense up.  Then I heard a small and calm voice inside of me saying, “Trust me.”  I said, Okay, and I tried to relax myself and trust God that all things would be okay.  However, a short while later, I found myself completely tensed up again.  Again came the voice that said, “Trust me.”  Okay, Lord.  I again tried to relax.  Three times that happened and three times I had to force myself to relax.  In the end, we made it to our destination in one piece and that experience has stayed with me all of these years.  God reminds me of it sometimes when things get troublesome.

Life can present some serious challenges to each one of us at times, but through it all we have a rock upon which we can trust our very existence.  The same one who stilled the waters can calm our troubled emotions and lead us back to the shore.  “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the  midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.  Selah.”  Ps 46:1 – 3.

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August 29, 2011

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Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

People love what they talk about.  We all know this to be true.  When a person talks about themselves all the time, it makes us feel uncomfortable because they seem to be full of themselves.  When someone talks incessantly about sports, we understand that that person really loves sports.  They wouldn’t do that if they didn’t love it.  Someone who loves cooking will undoubtedly talk about it all the time.  If we take that further, we can examine ourselves and know what it is that we love.

I have to begin with myself.  If I talk about myself all the time, I love myself and am not considerate of others.  Do I speak all the time about my work?  Do I only talk about my children?  What is it that occupies my mind all day?  What I take the time to talk about is inevitably what is on my mind during the day.  Is my mind on God?  Does God and godly things come out of my mouth easily?  Or am I talking constantly about my trips to the mall and about the latest things that I would like to purchase?

I have known quite a few different kinds of religious people.  Some spoke of God religiously, showing that they really loved religion and appearing to be religious more than God.  However, I also knew a person who spoke genuinely of God and godly issues with a very soft and humble spirit of love.  I was and am sure that person truly loved God.  It made me think about what is on my mind.  What does my mind stray to when I’m driving to work or taking a walk?  When I have problems, do I consider how God feels about them and frame my conversations with that in mind?

Life in God is always interesting.  There’s always a new revelation around the corner.  There’s always something more to be learned about life here on earth and how God leads us through our daily trials.  When my mind is on God, it comes out of my mouth.