Year: 2013

Years after graduating high school, I have had dreams of showing up on the first day of junior high school, not knowing where my classrooms were, and wandering the maze of halls of the old three-story Vinita High School trying to find my classroom.

In my dream, I opened door after door to find class in progress, students and teachers staring blankly at me as my face flushed a bright red in embarrassment. By the time, I found my class and slipped into the last chair, the bell would ring to indicate the end of class.

We pre-enrolled in the spring, then went to the school a few days before school started to pick up our schedule. I lingered over it, memorizing every class, down to the last detail—time, room number, teacher. I spent hours with my friends, comparing schedules and wishing we could change it so we could all have the same classes together. We wanted to all be the same, same hair, same clothes, same classes, same friends. Junior high is all about fitting in.

 Things changed when Vinita High School Graduation Day came. One day we were all alike, but the day after graduation, we were each one of a kind. I was on my own, off to college, and then too soon, I dropped out and got married. When things were rough, a sick baby, bills to be paid and not enough money to pay them all, my dream recurred. 

Sometimes I dream of heaven. I walked through my Victorian mansion, with dark woods, a massive fireplace surrounded by walls and walls of books. I walked up the broad wooden staircase, into an open room with windows all around, looking out over a lovely park, where children run and play, and a window seat where I could sit and read for hours.

We can’t return to childhood, even if we want to, but we can go to a place where we are accepted and love and valued.

Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am there you may be also.” John14:2-3. NKJV

Heaven is not a dream, it is real.

 

What do you do the day after a great holiday? You get up and go back to work, so that’s what Peter did.

They’d had a glorious Easter Sunday evening church service.

Jesus had died on the cross, and was dead and buried for three days, but on a glorious Sunday morning, He rose from the dead.

That evening, all the disciples except Thomas were gathered together when Jesus appeared to them.

“Jesus breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” John 21:22, and at that moment, the disciples were born again, but Jesus didn’t stay with them this time like He always had in the past. Too soon, He was gone.

Monday came, and Peter told his fellow fishermen, “I’m going fishing.” Peter went right back to his old job, because without Jesus with him every day, Peter didn’t think he knew how to do anything else.

They fished all night.  Dawn broke and there stood Jesus on the beach. He called out, “Boys, did you catch any fish? Do you have anything to eat with your bread?” They said, “No!”

Jesus said, “Cast your net on the right side of the boat,” and they caught so many they couldn’t haul them all in.

Peter jumped off and swam to shore. When he got there, Jesus had a fire, and fish and bread ready to eat.

While they sat around the campfire after breakfast, Jesus asked Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?” Jesus was asking Peter if he loved Him more than the fish and fishing.

And then Jesus spoke the same two words that he had spoken to Peter when he called him to be his disciple three and a half years before. “Follow Me.” John 21:19.

“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Matthew 4:19

 Nothing had changed. The call was still the same.

 You might have to go back to the same job on Easter Monday, but you don’t have to go back to the same old lifestyle. Let Easter Sunday change you, any Sunday of the year.

Let Jesus breath the Holy Spirit on you too. Hear Jesus calling you today, “Follow me.”

 

“Does it feel like you are stuck in a rut? Break out of that rut and come to this restaurant, or go to that vacation place. Or buy this. Or try this.”  Advertisers know that we want to change, but we don’t want to change.

The rut feels comfortable. We don’t have to think about what to do if we just keep doing the same thing we’ve always done.

The rut is easy. We can just slide along in life, day by day, living each day just like the last.

The rut is normal. Everybody’s doing it. It’s acceptable to the crowd.

The Israelites got in a rut, going around the same mountain, wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. God had delivered them out of Egypt, where they were slaves, but like one preacher said, Egypt was still in them. They had the “slave” mentality. They rebelled against God, almost as soon as they got out of town, and were doomed to wander around in the desert, going around and around the same mountain for forty years until the rebels all died.

Even so, the Children of Israel had it pretty good, even in the desert. God opened the waters of the Red Sea so they could cross over. He provided quail for meat and manna for daily food. If they were running out of water, God provided it out of the rock. If the water was poisoned, God gave them the solution in the form of a tree to toss into the water to neutralize it and make it drinkable. For all the 40 years they walked around in the desert, their sandals didn’t wear out and their clothes were just like new.

How long have you been going around the same mountain? It’s time for some changes in your life, maybe uncomfortable changes, but it will be good for you. God has a great plan for you, just like He had a great plan for the Isrealites.

The Lord spoke to them one day and said, “You have skirted this mountain long enough. Turn northward.” Deuteronomy 2:3 NKJV.  It was time for things to change.

God is telling you today, “It’s been long enough! Change directions. It’s time for things to change.”

 

 

 

 

When I want to remember something important, I write it on my hand. If I don’t do that to remind myself, I may not remember for days. That is an important  part of you, the palm of your hand. It is always right there in front of you, where it can be seen. You use your hands for everything, so if something is written on your hand, it would be hard to forget.

God has a tattoo of you on the palm of His hands. “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” Isaiah 49:16 N IV

You are important to God. He wants to constantly be reminded of you. Every time He stretches out His hand to do something, He sees you. What a comfort! If God be for us, who can be against us? The very one who gave His only begotten Son thinks about you every time He looks at the palm of His hand.

Sometimes it might seem like you are all alone in the world, but Jesus will never leave you. You may have lost your last friend, but you have a friend that sticks closer than a brother.

Jesus Himself said, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you. I will go with you even to the end of the world.” I am never alone. He has promised never to leave me.

Engraved on God’s hand is a permanent reminder of me to God, tattooed onto God’s hand.

He couldn’t even forget me even  if He tried.

Lavon Hightower Lewis

I remember times I tried to argue with my mother when I was a child and she would say, “Are you disputing my word? Are you calling me a liar?” Her word was the final authority and what Mama said went.

There’s a lot of talk about faith these days. Discussions abound on what faith is, drawing on the famous Bible definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1, which says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence  of things not seen.”

Consider the woman mentioned in Hebrews 11, Sarah, wife of Abraham, mother of the Jewish race. The scriptures say she was given strength to conceive when barren and 90 years old because she considered Who had made the promise and determined Him to be true to His word.

She looked down one day at her 90-year-old body, which had been barren even when she was young, and she determined that it was impossible for her to have a baby. Then she looked up into the stars, and tried to number them, as God had told her husband. Then she considered the One who gave the promise—God Almighty, the Creator of the universe—and determined that He was reliable, trustworthy, faithful, and true to His word. Simply put, if God said it, He will do it, no matter how it looks on the surface.

She stopped doubting His word. That’s what faith is—not doubting, but believing everything God says. Anything less is sin, because it is the same as calling God a liar. “God is not a man that He should lie,” Num. 23:19.

If He has said He will do it, it will come to pass. There is no place for doubting or disputing His word. The Psalmist said, “Forever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven,” Ps. 119:89.

Faith is simply taking God at His word.

My thornless hybrid blackberries aren’t very sweet this year, so I had to add a lot of sugar to the cobbler. They really only provided the purplish-blue color, and a little bit of sourness, but mostly it was just bland.

My red hardy hibiscus is blooming nicely but the flowers are smaller in diameter and the petals of the flowers are skinnier. It also took a long time for them to bloom. The crape myrtle is doing well, but the bloom heads are not as full this year. The flower petals all seem to fall off quickly.

I haven’t heard a thing from anyone about okra this year. Makes me wonder how it is bearing in local gardens.

This has been a very cool summer, over all, with an a lower average temperature compared to the last couple of years. Add to that more rain in July than we’ve had in quite a few years, and I believe the summer crops just are not getting enough heat.

All of these—blackberries, hibiscus, crape myrtle, okra—all need heat to bloom and set fruit. They are plants that thrive in the heat of the summer, one of the main reasons I have chosen to grow these things. If it isn’t hot, they don’t do as well. Oh, they will grow and put on blooms, but the results will be sort of skimpy.

I used to always say that I did well under stress. My job at the phone company was one of the most stressful jobs in the company—taking care of local and long distances equipment. We had constant trouble tickets to resolve, with some of course more important than others, but all customer reports were considered important. Almost every part of my job was high priority, but I got used to the stress and considered myself not just a survivor, but a thriver, (if there is such a word.)

Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 NKJV.

Jesus overcame, so that we could overcome. Use tribulation to thrive; don’t settle for survival.