Spending Time With The Light!

Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. (Isaiah 60:1 KJV)

Since retirement, I have not found a lot of reasons to encourage me to get up and out of bed early in the morning. I do, though. I don't want to fall into the habit of sleeping my days away.

Depression can lead to a lot of excess sleeping and sleeping our days away can lead to depression as when we spend all of our time sleeping we do not get to live life. We do not get to enjoy life. And, life is for living! Sleep is for resting and rejuvenating our bodies and minds so that we can get up and live the next day.

Over time, I have developed and committed myself to some coping skills that help me to get up without regrets and to live a bit. I rise early before my husband is up so I can spend some quiet time with the Lord; for devotions and to write this daily blog. I began writing this daily blog, at least in part, to discipline myself to get up and spend time in the word and with the Word before the world comes crashing in. I usually wake up before the alarm goes off. But, there have been more than a few times when the alarm has gone off, that I've thought that maybe I should skip my morning routine and go back to sleep. 

Lately, though I have been waking up with a smile. I realized that the blasting of the alarm clock is like a mother or grandmother hollering at a teenager to get out of bed. So, I found an alarm on my phone that sounds like a wind-chime. Wind-chimes, of course, remind me of the wind. The wind reminds me of the Holy Spirit. When I wake up now to the sound of wind-chimes, I wake up smiling ready to face the day and live life, knowing that the light, who is Jesus the Christ, is with me in that moment. 

Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. (Isa 60:1)

What better way is there to start the day than to spend some intentional time with the light, who is our Lord, Jesus the Christ!

God's Peace - Pr. J.

Crashing To The Ground

"Consider Assyria, once a cedar in Lebanon,
   with beautiful branches overshadowing the forest;
it towered on high,

   its top above the thick foliage." 

“‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: Because the great cedar towered over the thick foliage, and because it was proud of its height, I gave it into the hands of the ruler of the nations, for him to deal with according to its wickedness. I cast it aside, and the most ruthless of foreign nations cut it down and left it. Its boughs fell on the mountains and in all the valleys; its branches lay broken in all the ravines of the land. All the nations of the earth came out from under its shade and left it. All the birds settled on the fallen tree, and all the wild animals lived among its branches.

                                                                 (Ezekiel 31:3,10-13 NIV)

Pharaoh is to be warned. Even though Egypt stands tall like a tree towering over everything; Assyria once stood even taller. But, for its pride it came crashing down at the hand of God. So shall Egypt fall.

There was a huge pine, over 80 feet tall, not many feet from our home on Huron Bay. It was a beautiful tree that towered high above all of the others. It existed until a couple of summers ago. It had grown so big and so tall that we knew that if it ever fell that there would be nothing left to our home. It had grown too big and had become a danger to us. God's people (and governments) get too big... When we become dangerous to the well-being of others we ought not be surprised if God's will is to cut us down to size or let us crash where we can do no harm to others.

Again, those who have ears, hear the warning from Proverbs: "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." (Prov 16:18)

God's Peace - Pr. J