Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed . . .” (1)  So . . . the kingdom of heaven is small? 🤔 Most things are small in their beginning stages. But pay attention—Jesus is talking about a seed here. And seeds grow. So let Jesus keep talking, please. 😏 “ . . . a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field.” (1) The seed, then, in order to grow, must be placed in the ground, a dark and often damp area. That’s where growth takes place. Hmm. 🤔 Sounds lonely.

But, again, let Jesus speak. 🙄 “It is the smallest of seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree . . .” (2) Who would think something so small could grow so big! That’s encouraging. Things take time to grow, to flourish, to produce fruit. The same is true about our lives and our work. Feeling small, being small – is where we all begin. And loneliness is part of the process, too. 

But let’s go back to Jesus. “. . . so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” (2) The seed eventually becomes a flower and then a bush and then a tree which provides a home for birds. The seeds we plant (i.e. the work we do for God) create community and comfort for others.

So, “the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed.” (1) I understand the mustard seed but what exactly is this kingdom of heaven? 🤔 It is where humility (us) and exaltedness (God) meet. We will experience it fully and completely when we reach heaven. But in the meantime, we can find this kingdom of heaven in our hearts and in our work.

So here’s the important thing: when we feel small (humbled) we are in the perfect place for God (exaltedness) to meet us. And when he does, his greatness will overwhelm us, lift us up, and carry us to new heights, where we will do great things. 😀 “He will bless those who fear the Lord, both the small and the great.” (3)

It begins when we are small. We are called to do something small because to do something great is to do something small. Greatness always begins with smallness. 🙃 To do something small is to do something great. Remember the mustard seed. 

(1) Matthew 13:31    (2) Matthew 13:32    (3) Psalm 115:13

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” (1) Just let that sink in a bit. . . . . . children of God. . . . . . . God—the creator of the universe, the Almighty, most powerful being—his children. We have his spirit, will inherit his kingdom, and will live with him eternally. Do I hear a Hallelujah! out there? 😁 I like how John adds this phrase: “and so we are.” It’s as if he, too, was in awe of the statement he just wrote. . . “children of God; and so we are!”

John inserts here that the world does not comprehend this idea of people being children of God because they do not know God. And that is the prerequisite of being his child—knowing God, knowing who his Son is, and wanting that relationship with him. The relationship, by the way, is crucial. Many people believe there is a God, and some people know about God. But it is not the same as being “called children of God. . . . and so we are.”

However, we, too, struggle with this concept because our vision of God is blurred and distorted. “For now we see in a mirror dimly.” (2) Despite God’s spirit living within us, we are not what we should be or could be, and many days we do not act like children of God and do not feel like children of God. Even so, “Beloved, we are God’s children now.” (3) “And so we are.”

But we can count on this: One day, “when he appears we shall be like him.” (3) One day we will be holy, complete, perfect, sinless. Imagine that! Living a truly fulfilled life every day, forever. Why can we not ascertain this completeness now? Why must we wait? As I said, our vision is limited. Our understanding of God is quite imperfect, certainly smaller than the reality of who he is. And our transformation will not take place until we can “see him as he is.”(3)  That’s when “we shall be like him.”

Until then, we just need to concentrate on being his children, calling on our Father for everything because he so so loves us. John implores us to “see what kind of love the Father has given us.”  David got it. He wrote “His steadfast love endures forever.” (4) And he repeated it 26 times in Psalm 136! 🤪

Perhaps we, too, should spend our days repeating this truth to ourselves: “His steadfast love endures forever.”  Then, maybe we can better understand that we are the children of God . . . “and so we are!” 😀

(1) 1 John 3:1     (2) 1 Corinthians 13:12     (3) 1 John 3:2    (4) Psalm 136

“Love does not envy or boast.” (1) I find it interesting that the two verbs are paired together: envy and boast. Both are rooted in the acts of comparing and competing, which sometimes lead to unhealthy results. Paul warns us to “not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.” (2)

Hmm. 🤔 It sounds like being conceited (prone to boasting) leads to envy. I would have thought it might be the other way around. I figured first we envy someone, then become one of the envied, and eventually become conceited. But Paul writes that those who are conceited make others angry—and perhaps discontented—which leads to everyone envying one another. Therefore, someone who is envious is already a proud, arrogant, conceited individual who loves to boast. What are these people boasting about? Probably how great their lives are due to how great they are.  

Hmm. 🤔 But if their lives are so great, of what and of whom are they envious? Are they never satisfied? Exactly. They are envious of anything that they cannot obtain. It is a never-ending discontentment. Haman is a perfect example of this. Remember him? He was King Ahasuerus’ right-hand man. He boasted about “the splendor of his riches, the number of his sons, all the promotions with which the king had honored him, and how he advanced him above officials and the servants of the king.” (3) He also boasted about his special relationship with Queen Esther. And yet, he was not content because one guy (Mordecai) was not impressed with Haman—one guy did not envy him. It made him furious.

So . . . at the root of our boasting seems to be an insatiable desire for others to envy us. To envy is to want what others have; to boast is to want others to envy what we have! 🤪 Envy is included in Paul’s list of the works of the flesh, alongside of “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.” (4)  Yeah. Little “things like these.” 🙄 It’s a serious problem.

Here’s the cycle: We boast about our greatness, which satisfies our need to feel good about ourselves . . . for a little while . . . until we see something that we want . . . and then we become envious . . . and angry . . . and are not content until we have it . . . so we get it . . . and then boast about how great we are, which satisfies our need to feel good about ourselves  . . . for a little while . . . 😏 You get the picture.

And so Paul writes, “Love does not envy or boast.” They are cousins, and we need to steer clear of both. But how do we do this? There is only one way. Paul writes, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (5)  Instead, we are to “walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” (6)  What happens when we do that? We will be filled with “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control”(7)—little things like that.  😉

By the way, Haman’s story did not end well. He built a gallows for Mordecai to be hanged on and the king hanged Haman on it instead. 😮

It’s best not to envy or boast. 😬

1 Corinthians 13:4 (2) Galatians 5:26  (3) Esther 5:12  (4) Galatians 5:19-21   (5) Galatians 5:24  (6) Galatians 5:16 (7) Galatians 5:22-23

It was the anti-drug campaign in the 80s and First Lady Nancy Reagan led the way. It was considered the elementary solution aimed at teenagers addressing the temptation to experiment with dangerous drugs. It was a great campaign that swept the world. When asked to “do” drugs the answer was simple: Just Say No. Presidents Nixon and Reagan were determined to fight the War On Drugs and spent millions of dollars in the effort. Reagan established mandatory penalties for drug crimes. In 1980, 50,000 people were incarcerated for drug crimes; by 1997 that number was over 400,000. First Lady Reagan toured the country to educate and inspire everyone to fight the “war.” The city of Los Angeles established the first Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program in 1983 which spread throughout the nation and still exists in public schools today. In 1985 between 2-6% of Americans considered drugs a problem. By 1989, that number had increased to 64%.*

It was an extremely successful campaign: Just Say No. It was a great slogan.

It just didn’t work. 😧

The war on drugs continues. As a matter of fact, it is worse than ever. Why is that? Because just saying no is not that simple. The ability to say no does not occur the moment we are tempted. We don’t simply decide I’ll just say no! and then magically are not tempted to do whatever it is we are trying so hard not to do! Signing a pledge card, agreeing not to do something—these are futile until we address the real issue. And what is that? 🤨

Our hearts—specifically, our desires. James wrote about it: “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.” (1) Until our desires are changed, we will not be able to just say no to anything—drugs or alcohol or donuts or any other bad habit! Being able to just say no requires two steps. First, we need to want to change. If we do not want to change, we will not. This is where most people are. They do not want to give up the drugs or the alcohol or the donuts or the (fill in the blank). They would rather enjoy the temporary pleasures and suffer the unhealthy consequences than give (fill in the blank) up. 😮 Oh, they have periods of abstinence—days, weeks, even months—but in the end, they are drawn back into their bad habits because they really do not want to give them up.

But if we really do want to change then we can go to the next step. Second, we must allow God to change our desires. This is not a “one and done” thing; it is a process but one that will free us from the bondage of our problems. Here’s Paul’s message about it: “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” (2) This transformation is the changing of our desires (what we want) to God’s desires (what God wants). Note that this occurs “one degree” at a time. 😕 As I said, it’s a process.

But this is good news! God can change our desires! 😀 But that’s not even the best part because when this happens, guess what? God will give us whatever we want! 😲 Really! How can this be? Because we will want what God wants! 😁

Our real problem is not saying no to things. Our real problem is not wanting to say no and not believing that God’s desires are more desirable than our desires. But once God does change our desires, we will experience freedom like nothing else. We can be free of all that binds us—our habits, our attitudes, our anger, our fear, our insecurities, and so much more.

It is ironic to discover that Nike’s Just Do It campaign began in 1988 right alongside the Just Say No era. But the same theology applies to Nike and its idealistic fitness. If I were to write about it, I would give it this title: Just Do It (and why we don’t!).  😬

*Just Say No – HISTORY

(1) James 1:2    (2) 2 Corinthians 3:17-18       

We all spend time waiting—in line, in traffic, on hold. Waiting for the cable guy to arrive. Waiting for the doctor to walk in. Waiting for the money we need. Waiting for someone to respond to a text. Waiting for the right mate to come along. Waiting for a prayer to be answered. Waiting for our metaphorical ship to come in! We often find ourselves . . . as Dr. Seuss poetically phrases . . .

“just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go

or a bus to come, or a plane to go

or the mail to come, or the rain to go

or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow

or waiting around for a Yes or No

or waiting for their hair to grow.

Everyone is just waiting.”

Dr. Seuss concludes in his book Oh, the Places You’ll Go, that waiting is “a most useless place.”

But I do not concur. It can be a paralyzing place, a powerless place, but it is only so if we are waiting on others to do what we want them to do—which is always frustrating because no one seems to be on our schedule. What? 🤪 But why would they be?

So, how do we turn this “most useless place” into a useful one? What do we do while we wait? I suggest two things:

David writes “For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress: I shall not be greatly shaken.” (1) While we are waiting for people to come through, for things to happen, we must turn our hearts to God. If we put our trust in people and circumstances, we will be under their control. And here, I agree with Dr. Seuss, that that is a “most useless place.”  We give the people in our lives and the circumstances in which we find ourselves waayy too much power. 🤔 We act as if we cannot make a move until (fill in the blank) happens. How absurd!  But if we turn to God and wait “in silence,” we “shall not be greatly shaken.” David probably struggled with it, too, but he knew where to place his trust: “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.” (2)  Our hope is not that people will come through for us, that things will work out—our hope is based on our faith in God, which is actually “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (3)  Waiting, therefore, should be a time of hope.

The word “wait” has more than one definition. One is to linger, to hang around, to stay in place. Another is to act as a server, a waiter/waitress. If we want our waiting time to be useful, we need to serve—serve the Lord, serve others. Isaiah writes “those who wait for (serve) the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” (4)  In serving the Lord, we will not become weary. Ironically, we become stronger. Waiting, therefore, should be a time to help.

The next time you find yourself waiting, think about David and Isaiah (and Dr. Seuss 😏).  Be hopeful. Be helpful. And while you are watching your wait, “Oh, the places you’ll go!”

(1) Psalm 62:1-2   (2) Psalm 62:4   (3) Hebrews 11:1    (4) Isaiah 40:31

Seuss, Dr. Oh, the Places You’ll Go! Random House, 1990.

So, how’s your diet going? 😏 We all (small and large) at some point “watch” our food intake: fewer carbs, less sugar, limited red meat, more veggies, gallons of water, etc. After personal experience with several diets, here is my conclusion: they all work. Yep. They all work—except for the scams, the “magic pills”—watch out for those! 😕 So here is the real question—why did I ever need to try a second diet? If they all work, why did I need another one? And this is the startling answer: My eating habits (which I can change) and my exercise routine (which I can improve) are not the problem. It’s me! I am the problem, not the diet. And I think I am not alone in this quandary.

What’s wrong with us? Well . . . many things, 😏 but my short answer is that we do not commit to anything for very long. It’s an endurance issue. We start strong and then we peter out. Here’s what James has to say on the matter. “Let steadfastness have its full effect” (James 1:4).

We are not very good at being steadfast, which includes being patient, persevering, and enduring to the end. We are quick to quit, give up, and cheat on our diets (and other things); therefore, we rarely experience the “full effect” of the diet (and whatever else “it” is). And then, of course, we blame the diet (or the “thing” we have abandoned) and accept defeat. We settle for less. And feel bad about the whole thing. ☹️

What shall we do? How do we become better at endurance, at seeing something through to the very end? It is not easy. As a matter of fact, endurance is only mastered when things are tough. It always comes in the form of a test. Look at verse 3: “for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” This idea awakens the teacher in me. How should we prepare for the test? Two ways: study and practice. If our “test” is a weight problem, we need to find a good plan, set a goal, and stick to the plan until we reach the goal. When we do that, the result will always be steadfastness—and losing a few pounds! 😁 The same truth can be applied to any situation that requires endurance. Finishing any task is a test of faith—faith in ourselves, faith in the plan, faith in God. How do we have faith? Only with God’s help but rest assured, “he gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength” (Isaiah 40:29). Did you catch that? “To him who has no might”—to that person, he “increases strength.” Have faith that God will make you steadfast.

And here’s the best part: when we pass the test, when steadfastness is produced in us, we will “be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:4). Completing something generates such a feeling of accomplishment! And we will be stronger for the next “thing” that needs our attention. And eventually, we will look forward to the challenges 😮 and “count it all joy, my brothers, when [we] meet trials of various kinds” (James 1:1). 😀

Wow. Just wow.

So, my advice to those of us watching our weight? We don’t need to find a new diet. We just need to allow one to have its full effect.

I was running late to a meeting recently (meaning I only had 20 minutes to spare instead of the usual 30 minutes).  My “late” is most people’s “early.” 😬 Anyway, I didn’t have time to fix my normal bacon and eggs breakfast, so I decided to pop in at the McDonalds around the corner and splurge with one breakfast burrito—sausage, egg, and cheese wrapped in a soft-shell tortilla. I brought my own coffee from home: freshly ground beans, freshly brewed coffee, with 5 tiny spoons of Stevia (to avoid sugar and carbs), 2 tablespoons of regular Half and Half, (did you know that the Fat Free actually has more carbs? 😮) poured it into my nifty 16-ounce Starbucks mug that I have been using for at least 15 years now.

No. I’m not anal retentive. 😏 I’m a coffee snob and like things done a certain way. Regarding the carbs—counting them is the best way for me to stay 10 pounds overweight. 😬

Anyway . . . the drive-thru line at the McDonalds was long (as usual). So, I parked and walked in the dining room. I stopped as soon as the door closed because there were approximately 12 customers just standing around—not at the counter, but not sitting either, and they all looked at me. A man next to me said, “Go ahead. She can take your order,” and pointed to the lone employee working the cashier.

“You all are not in line?” I said to everyone.

“No.” They all chimed.

“You’ve already ordered?”

“Yes.” They all chimed.

“You’re all waiting on your orders?”

“Yes.” They all chimed. And I think they all rolled their eyes, too. 🙄

“What?” I said to everyone and no one. “This is McDonalds! This is supposed to be fast food!”

The man next to me laughed and said, “Fast food? No. That was back in the 70’s. There’s no fast food here.”

“Well, I don’t have time for this,” I announced and promptly left the restaurant.

I got back in my car and then had to hurry (speed) to make my appointment. Of course, I arrived early (with only 10 minutes to spare) and saw another McDonalds.  No one was in line, so I drove through the drive-thru, ordered, received my burrito, and as I paid the woman working the window, she said, “Have a blessed day.”

I smiled and said, “Thank you for your service.”

Thank you for your service? 🤔 Isn’t that line supposed to be reserved for the military, the policemen, the first responders? But I find myself really grateful for anyone working a job these days. I am particularly thankful for people at hair salons and the servers at restaurants. I find myself tipping them way more than the traditional 20%.

In the past few years my sisters have taught me to leave a generous tip for the maids in hotels. I confess that I never really thought about it before. But now it’s second nature.  To be thankful. For everyone working hard at their jobs.

Of course, I will always be especially grateful for those who risk their lives by working their jobs. I will continue to thank them for their service.  They are at the top of my list. These days, however, my list has grown much longer.

Just in case you’re wondering, I arrived at my meeting 5 minutes early. The woman I was meeting arrived at 9:30, right on time. I did not chide her for being late.  😉

Hello everyone!

Writing Walk On Water was an incredible journey! God continues to teach me new things daily about being faithful to the task he has given me. If you have not bought your copy, skip on over to the BUY NOW tag or contact me personally.

So, what am I doing now? Writing. 😏 Yep. I thought I was done, but God had other plans. Isn’t God great? 😁 I am writing a series of Bible studies that stem from the devotional book. I have already finished one on Joseph and one on Esther. Moses is in the works. The studies fall under a division of W.O.W. Books Nothing is for Nothing Bible Studies.  If you are enjoying the devotional, you will enjoy these also. Consider them for your next study. 

I am resuming a weekly post beginning Thursday, May 5th. It will be THURSDAY’S THOUGHTS and will include a mixture of inspirational thoughts, true stories, upcoming events, etc. Join my mailing list to make sure you stay connected. (You might want to check your spam mail when you do in case you need to confirm your joining!) 

Till then, mull this little nugget over in your brains: To do something great is to do something small. More on that idea later. 🙂

Blessings on you all.