Picture DEES~~~~~Two Spots

Recently in our weekly prayer session a devotion was given on Elijah from 1 Kings 19:1-8. Elijah exhausted from his travels and the task he was doing came to a broom tree. He was down to nothing but God and his grace. In utter despair with no where else to go he sat down at the foot of the tree and prayed to God that he may die. Instead of granting him his request God strengthened him instead.

Too often when we come to that point where we are down-to-grace we come to that tree and want to hang ourselves rather than wait for The Lord to replenish our strength. This is what the foot of the tree has to offer, maybe a place of momentary rest but a place of despair, weakness, and pain.

The foot of the cross offers us strength, grace, mercy, love and so much more. The spot at the foot of the tree can be gone the first good storm that comes its way where the spot at the foot of the cross remains forever.

So when we find ourselves down-to-grace we need to decide which spot we want to be. The tree of no hope that offers only temporary solutions and emotional despair or the spot at the foot of the cross where hope and the ability to go on is found.

Meet me at the cross. You'll never regret it.

Hope in God, the best Hope there is

Hope is keeping your eyes fixed on the promise God has given you without giving up. It’s how we look at things, our perspective.       

There are many things in life we hope for. We hope for a new bike for Christmas, we hope for a new car, we hope we can go to Disneyland for our birthday, we hope Grandma’s cancer will go away. In some of the things we hope for they do come true and in other incidents they do not.

 

The best thing we can do with our hope is to keep our eyes fixed on the promises of God without giving up on them. Hope is a matter of how we look at things. It’s our perspective or viewpoint of something. There will be days when we feel like we have no hope but that isn’t true. There is no such thing as “no hope.”

 

Recently in the Philippines with thousands of lives lost and homes destroyed they must feel like they have no hope. In some ways when you put it up to the light and look at it they don’t have much hope. However, there is one thing that tornadoes, hurricanes, tidal waves, and earthquakes cannot destroy and that is the hope we have in Jesus and in the promises we are given.

 

If you read your Bible you will find countless numbers of promises for us to hang on to. Promises such as “God will never leave us nor forsake us. In Christ we can do all things, God is preparing a place in Heaven for those who believe in and follow Him” and many more promises.

 

It’s not a matter of how we are “feeling.” As I tell the grandkids don’t go by your feelings, they are fickle, flawed and cannot be trusted. It is a matter of focusing on God and the hope we have in Him. Too often Satan will try to get you to focus on the bad things around you that make you feel hopeless. When he does you need to sit down with your Bible, turn to the Psalms and get caught back up in the promises God has to offer you and pray, pray, pray!

 

You can read the Bible front to back ten times and you will never find a promise that says you will never feel pain, you will never be hurt, everyone is going to love you, and you will never have a reason to cry, fear, or suffer. You won’t find those because God knows we live in a fallen world who has given in to ungodly ways and poor choices.

 

It is through the pain and suffering we go through that we finally will focus on the promises of God. If we had it good all the time we would be like Adam and Eve in the Bible who didn’t think they needed God let alone listen to Him. It was that attitude that got them kicked out of the garden and placed in what must have seemed like a hopeless situation.

 

Just remember no matter how bad life seems to be there is hope in God, let that be your focus, your choice of attitude, your way of life.

 

© 2013 Karen J. Gillett at Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing for KarensKidsKorner

Rainbow cloud

As I listened to my radio in between the music they were playing the conversation the disc jockey brought up caught my attention. He mentioned a rainbow he was seeing in the clouds that looked unusual. Calling his wife he asked her if she had ever seen anything like that before.

Curiosity and the love of rainbow stories brought me out of my chair in hopes of seeing what they were seeing. Living 26 miles north of where he was I held out hope that it was in a position where I could see it too.

Sure enough hiding in the clouds were the markings of a rainbow, the colors stood out on top of the clouds just waiting to come out. As much as I wanted a good picture of it the bright sun directly above it shining into my camera made it difficult to capture the moment on film. However, it wasn't hard to capture this moment in my heart, a place of storage that will outlive any picture I could have taken of it.

On the disc jockey's side he got the full view of the rainbow with the cloud behind it. For me I got the cloud with the rainbow peeking out from the top of it. To me it was the view I needed at the time as it made me think of life and how we find ourselves surrounded by storms, clouds of clutter, winds of change, and showers of unpleasantness.

In spite of the clouds and storms around us if we go looking there is a rainbow to be seen peeking out. At the time I took this picture I did so because of my love for rainbows but now that I look at it, it was a sticky note in the sky from God. The cloud with the rainbow was directly over my parents' house. Later the same day I took this picture my dad got news that his lab work from his annual physical came back abnormal. Still waiting to talk to the doctor I already have heard from God that my dad is going to be ok. There is a rainbow hiding in the clouds for him and my mom. I just need to watch for and be ready to capture it when it comes by.

To My Granddaughter Marissa who I nicknamed Rainbow:
I love you my sweet, on this same day I took this picture of the rainbow I knew you were having troubles with your friends but everything is going to work out fine. There is a rainbow hidden in the clouds for you showing you God is there, watching over you and things will work themselves out. Turn to the substance that will help you the most, Jesus Christ and go Rainbow hunting in the sky.         Luv forever, Gma

Kid DEES ~~~~~~ Promised Strength

Psalm 31:24 (paraphrase) Because I have hope in God He will strengthen my heart

We can hope for a new car. We can hope to get what we want for Christmas. We can hope to see a love one we haven’t seen for a long time. We wish for these things in expectation that they will happen. There is no guarantee that we will get what we wish or hope for but we do it anyway.

When we put our hope in God we do get something in return for our trust in Him. He promises to strengthen our heart. Not our physical heart but our spiritual heart. Our inner self that makes us who we are. It’s important that we use that strength to follow God and obey what He tells us to do. God is there for us and we need to be there for Him in our behavior.

Our prayer: Precious Heavenly Father thank you so much that we have someone as special as You to put our hope in. Help us Lord to use the strength you promise us to stand up to Satan and be strong against the temptations of the world.

Ó Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing