“Jesus replied, ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching.’ ” John 14:23-24

Driving to church on a random week day recently, spiritual inspiration struck me as clearly as the light and Jesus’ voice from heaven had flashed around Saul and struck him blind on the road to Damascus.

Running late to a meeting that day and being fairly sure that no cars would be coming down the winding, hilly drive from the church at 8:15am, I allowed myself 45 seconds to slap on a couple of dots of cover stick, some powder, lipstick, and blush as I drove. As I came around the big curve of the drive I was straddling the yellow line and speeding as well. To my shock a truck was coming towards me in one of my lanes. I dropped the blush, jerked the wheel back to my right, and let off the gas. I easily avoided him and corrected my lax driving; it was not a near miss. We were both safe. But that’s when the light dawned.

As we drive through life, we know the rules of the road. We pretty much follow them on the asphalt as well as on that Christian drive down the narrow path. But there are those times when situations set us up to choose failure, both literally and metaphorically. We allow thought patterns to begin that try to justify or excuse breaking the law.

The same thing happens on the road with Christ too. We veer out of our lane of faithful obedience to Christ and excuse it as a little thing. Just a distraction. Just this once. Everyone else does. God will understand.

Times when the truth would sound better if we embellished it a little. (Lying.)

Staying in our lane requires focus – on Christ – not on the things around us. It requires vigilance of our sinful hearts and thought patterns. It requires humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God. It requires self-control.

As you drive through your day, literally and metaphorically, stay in your lane, Girls. We honor Jesus and show Him our love through faithful obedience. Let’s not veer to the right or the left. When we live above reproach as scripture commands, we become the light of Christ to the world. The secular world is looking for us to fail, to give them cause to discount the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Let’s be vigilant and focused so that we do not cause a devastating wreck that leaves an unsaved life hanging in the balance.

“Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world…” Philippians 2:14-15

 

“In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 5:16

We have all experienced it.  It can drive you crazy.  The sporadic chirping of a dead smoke detector battery.  I bet the sound is going through your head right now and you are remembering back to the last time your heard it.  They never seem to go out at a convenient time.  For some reason it always seems to be in the middle of the night.

Well about a month ago, I got an early morning, and I mean early, text from my brother.  He stopped by on his way home from work to check on my grandparent’s place and do a few loads of laundry.  He was not amused when what greeted him was the chirping of a dead smoke detector battery.  Our text exchange at 4:30 am went like this:

His text:  “Next time you come down bring a lot of 9-volt batteries.  Smoke detectors are driving me crazy”

Of course, I inform him where he could find the replacement batteries at the house.

His text:  “ LOL ok I’ll check. They are all going out at once.” … “They [batteries] were there.  I’ll hang them back up instead of smashing them. Lol”

He claims that there were at least six smoke detectors in the house and all of them were beeping at the same time.  I think he is exaggerating just a little.   He said it was like walking into a game called “Let’s Find the Smoke Detectors.”

So have you felt like this?  Are you walking through a maze of smoke detectors?  You know… stop one chirp and another pops up.  It is like you can never get ahead.  You feel like you don’t get anything accomplished on your “to do” list.  You are run down and running on empty.  Frustrated.  Something is always pulling you back, getting you down.  You worry, have fears. You get irritated. It’s driving you crazy and you feel like smashing something.

So what do you do? Do you give in to your pity party or do you calmly put out the chirps?  Are you spending time with Jesus recharging your batteries or are you letting everything build up until you just want to smash something?  Really, what does smashing something accomplish?  It may satisfy you for a few minutes, but in the long run not only do you end up hurting yourself, you hurt those around you, and you hurt your witness as a lover of Jesus Christ.  Plus, you have to go out and buy new smoke detectors which takes more time, effort and money.

Is this how you are feeling?  Are you hearing the warning chirps?  Is your battery running low? Batteries can only last so long.  They are easily drained by over use.  Just like a cell phone has to be recharged every day. You need to plug in and recharge. Every day.

Today, let’s take some time to plug into our POWER source.  Maybe put on some PRAISE music and sit down with your favorite beverage and God’s Word.  Below is just a few verses to get you started.  I am sure you can add more.  Now spend time with the source of your power, pouring your heart out to him in prayer, letting him fill you up and recharge you.

Joshua 1:8  This law must not leave your lips! You must memorize it day and night so you can carefully obey all that is written in it. Then you will prosper and be successful.

Isaiah 40:31  But those who wait for the Lord’s help find renewed strength;
they rise up as if they had eagles’ wings, they run without growing weary,
they walk without getting tired

Psalm 55:6  I say, “I wish I had wings like a dove!  I would fly away and settle in a safe place!

Isaiah 43:2  When you pass through the waters, I am with you; when you pass through the streams, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not harm you.

Matthew 11:28-30  Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry.”

Isaiah 14:3-4  When the Lord gives you relief from your suffering and anxiety, and from the hard labor which you were made to perform, you will taunt the king of Babylon with these words: “Look how the oppressor has met his end! Hostility has ceased!

As your time of recharging comes to an end, I pray that you start your day with a fully charged battery ready to face the fiery darts you know the enemy will be sending your way.

Happy Valentine’s Day to each of you!

No matter your romantic connections or lack thereof, may you know today in your heart of hearts how deeply you are loved by the Father !

This Repost seemed like a useful thing to share today! Hope you enjoy and find encouragement!

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” 1 John 4:7-11

Step up and show love to those around you today! Make someone’s day!

Aunt Sis, she has another name that sounds nothing like Sis but for reasons long lost to family lore she became Sissy some sixty plus years ago and the name stuck. I grew up knowing her as Aunt Sis.

People in my family tend to earn new names from their given ones. I am Mamie, Mame for short. Only the closest to me call me by that name. My niece Ellie Grace (She is called Eggie) calls me Mamie and while it is intended to be a two syllable word, she says it with such a Southern twang and drawl that it has more like eight syllables.

My Aunt Sis can spin a yarn like nobody I’ve ever known, I used to beg her to tell me stories when I was little. She could transport me to a time when the adults I knew were children. They were wild and free, romping about thickets of pine trees. Those conifers were so densely packed they left a carpet of pine straw on the ground year round, beneath the carpet was the richest and darkest dirt. One day the conifer carpet would compost down into more beautiful black dirt, thick with nutrients and soft as biscuit dough and excellent for mud pie makin’. Shoes were rarely worn, and storm weathered saplings would serve as pretend horses for pint size riders to gallop upon. There is a legend that as a baby my Mama was “thrown” from one of those hoses. In a rodeo type fashion Mama was placed atop just such a tree by her older sister, my Mama wasn’t a very good rodeo Bronco Buster because she promptly fell straight to the ground. Sis told me that story. I’d venture to say she told me that story multiple times to halt my incessant story requests.

She told me the story of Ol’ Mrs. H and her buttercups too. There is not a spring that goes by that I do not recollect that story and the adventure that followed it.

Mrs. H was an older woman in our small church growing up, in fact I hardly remember her, by the time I made any connection to her at all she had long since moved away from her sprawling estate. Her house was ginormous, or so it seemed, filled with mystique and legend it seemed to be bursting with old stories. It sat on the left of the Highway to Home but come the first of spring it wasn’t the house you noticed but the Buttercups that engulfed the grand old home. The rest of the world refers to them as daffodils but Sis called them Buttercups and so do I. I can still smell the sweet spring air, their aroma overpowering. As far as the eye could see all around that long abandoned antebellum home with its huge columns. A sea of yellow. Hundreds, maybe thousands of Buttercups lined up in perfectly straight and neat rows after row, as far as the eye could see. Bulbs planted decades before when the old house was alive and well.

Sis told about the old lady’s brother, having been born a little different, he struggled with the day-to-day, but he liked to plant and plant he did. Perfectly straight rows of buttercups, acres and acres of them. One spring Sis got permission from the Old Lady to have some of those buttercups. We set out on an Adventure of a lifetime. We got in “MIckey’s Bus.” Her husband drove a suburban before Suburbans were cool and she had aptly named it “Mickey’s Bus.” Its seats were covered in fabric that vaguely resembled those rag rugs that used to be popular. We drove the few miles over to the Highway and dug up several clusters of those Buttercups. We howled with laughter and giggled with glee as we went about the task of procuring those plants. Sis would tell us stories of the house and legends long since dead. We traversed the rows of Buttercups and unbeknownst to me at the time memories were born that day.

Memories that still make me smile, long after that grand ol’ house was replaced by huge metal warehouses in the name of progress, I’ve often wondered if the warehouse worker people know that they are standing on what was once that magnificent sea of yellow. There have been a few survivors from those original buttercups, I know where they reside. The Highway to Home split the estate and at the time a small section became a parcel or private property. Sis pointed them out me once some thirty years ago and and told me who the Planter would of been. I point them out to my children now, as the only reminder of that Sea of yellow planted a century or so ago, a remnant that remains unassumingly on the other side of the Highway to Home.

In the moments they are being made those memories rarely seem significant. I suspect that lovely cool day as we meandered down the road in an old white suburban, laden with sweet smelling flowers, shovels and picks, if you had told me that particular day would be one of my favorites and stand out in my memory and as a precious one at that, I likely would not have recognized it as such. Memories and stories that marked me and help to shape me into who I am.

I love to tell a story myself. I find myself on the other end of the incessant pleas for a story. I often tell my very own niece Eggie the stories of Rabboni. I told her the first Rabboni story as we sat on the beach many summers ago. I wrapped her in a towel and spoke just loud enough for her to hear. I waved my hand toward the water and its particularly rough waves that day and told her of His friends afraid on the sea. As the waves rolled in and the shadows grew long I told her how Rabboni walked on the rough and tumultuous sea, one very much like the one we were sitting beside. I told her how He enjoyed the company of fisherman; we giggled when we thought of how fishy his friends probably smelled. Most of all I tell her how He loves people. She loves to hear the stories of Rabboni and I love to tell stories of Him. Hebrews 12: 2 says that He is the author and perfecter of our faith. I am so thankful that He is writing my story beautifully and included sweet smelling Buttercups to serve as reminders of His faithfulness and Creativity.