Embrace the Within no. 81

"We need to cultivate patience in the midst of our trials [knowing] that God is actively working on our behalf to bring us to a better day."

Philip De Courcy

Wisdom grows through patience because we don’t just wake up one day with wisdom. Wisdom is a process born out of being patient whether we want to be patient or not. Health, gardening, and God have taught me all about patience.

When I first started this journey back in March 2020, I wanted an immediate fix. I was on the fast track to failure and I did just that, I failed. I was determined to change my life right then. I was going to get healthy immediately. I was going to grow my own food immediately. And failure taught me patience. I wasn’t ready to change everything. God had a lot more I needed to learn. And the trials and obstacles that came into my journey helped me learn and granted me patience and the ability to listen.

Closing in on three years of deciding to change, I can look back on that me from then and that me before and realize that patience cultivated in my garden, transformed in my healthy choices, and renewed through my study of the Word led me to be able to sit here today and have the better day I have today.

None of us are walking on water. BUT we are transforming. And we need the patience to allow God to work that transformation in our lives. My walk began with fixing my physical and mental life. I wasn’t looking for God or salvation. BUT He is patient as well and works on His own time to make that change.

And now that I see all the wonderful gifts and graces and benefits and joys of following the Way of the Lord, I can sometimes get impatient with the reluctance and refusal of others to see all those wonderful presents God is willing to give. So, that patience I learned out in the garden, in the basement, and in the study are now being translated into wisdom with dealing in patience with my neighbor.

Just like my garden failed when I tried to make everything happen at once, so will my spiritual seeds fail if I rush them as well. Patience is trust. And if I can’t be patient with God after all the patience He has shown to me, then what is the point?

I have no other choice BUT to control my life and give God the God things to accomplish in His time.

Shavua tov. Shalom to your home. Bless your being. The reign of YHWH is now. Be a blessing to YHWH and others.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #NoKingButChrist #MyNepheshMyChoice #ChristsLifeMatters #EmbracetheWithin #NotMyWayYHWH #GodKnows

Embrace the Within no. 80

"Love is the motive for working; joy is the strength for working."

Andrew Bonar

"Joy in the Lord should be the loftiest of joy."

Charles Spurgeon

Without joy, then what’s the point? And I think there is a lot of joylessness out there in what should be a joyful people acting out of love. Folks that are acting out of obligation, out of routine, out of habit and not out of love. Folks that go to church because that’s just what we have always done. And not a heart that is continuing to, “Followe peace with all men, and holinesse, without the which no man shall see ye Lord. Take heede, that no man fall away from the grace of God: let no roote of bitternes spring vp and trouble you, lest thereby many be defiled” (Hebrews 12:14-15 GNV).

But many are choosing to fall away. Many are looking for ways to suck the joy out of the room under the pretense of being holy and forgetting the joy that is in the Lord. So, I am not looking for divisiveness in translations and interpretations. I am looking to not be a stumbling block when I share the joy of the Lord. Because the folks that are not in joy are quite often ready to try and snatch away the joy of another. And why? They lack a heart of love.

“As the father hath loued me, so haue I loued you: continue in that my loue. If ye shall keepe my commandements, ye shall abide in my loue, as I haue kept my Fathers commandements, and abide in his loue.

These things haue I spoken vnto you, that my ioy might remaine in you, and that your ioy might be full.

This is my commandement, that ye loue one another, as I haue loued you. Greater loue then this hath no man, when any man bestoweth his life for his friendes. Ye are my friendes, if ye doe whatsoeuer I commaund you.

Henceforth call I you not seruants: for the seruant knoweth not what his master doeth: but I haue called you friends: for all things that I haue heard of my Father, haue I made knowen to you. Ye haue not chosen me, but I haue chosen you, and ordeined you, that ye goe and bring foorth fruite, and that your fruite remaine, that whatsoeuer ye shall aske of the Father in my Name, he may giue it you. These things commaund I you, that ye loue one another” (John 15:9-17 GNV).

The commandment to love is to bring us joy and not division. The commandment of love is to bring joy and not hardship. The command of love is to bring us joy and not separation. Are we acting out of love? It should be easy to tell by the joy we show.

So, if you don’t feel joy today, then what is the point? You can be joyless in anything else this world has to offer. You can even have temporary joy in the pleasures of the world. So, why are you following the Way of the Lord out of hardship and not out of joy?

Shavua tov. Shalom to your home. Bless your being. The reign of YHWH is now. Be a blessing to YHWH and others.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #NoKingButChrist #MyNepheshMyChoice #ChristsLifeMatters #EmbracetheWithin #NotMyWayYHWH #GodKnows