.`*.¸.*´✿¸.•*¨`*•..¸

Nature is God’s first missionary.

Where there is no Bible, there are sparkling stars.

Where there are no preachers, there are spring times.

 

 

Where there is no testament
 of scripture,


there is the testament of 
changing seasons and 
breath-stealing sunsets.

 

If a person has nothing but nature,

then nature is enough 
to reveal something about God.

~ Max Lucado

For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see His invisible qualities His eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

Romans 1:20 NLT

seek and seek again

Seek His will in all you do,
and He will show you which path to take.

Proverbs 3:6 NLT

I’ve always liked this verse.  I often think of it when I see an old path or an old dirt road.  (Maybe it’s one reason I take so many pictures of old paths and old dirt roads and old barns and old homes and old fences and old cabins and old wooden bridges and old water mills and old clapboard churches...oops, I took a detour... back to my post.)

Seek His will in all you do,

God wants us to believe in Him, follow and obey Him, and accept His gifts of salvation, mercy, and grace.  God wants us to love, to trust, to serve, to worship, to pray, and to praise Him. God gave each of us hearts to love and to care, ears to hear and to listen, mouths to speak and to tell, feet to walk and to go, eyes to look and to see, brains to think and to learn, hands to hold and to carry, and hearts that He knows.

God has ways He wants me to act, words He wants me to say, commitments He wants me to make, places He wants me to see, love He wants me to share, help He wants me to give, food He wants me to serve, money He wants me to contribute, places He wants me to go, visits He wants me to pay, times when He wants me listen, kindness He wants me to show.

One thing I know for sure: God always wants us to always seek His will.

 

There are occasions and situations that I don’t even give a thought as to what God’s will is.  Don’t even consider it.  Furtherst thing from my mind.  I’ll do what I shouldn’t or get too angry or say something stupid or act like jerk or... other stuff.  I have regrets and embarrassments and feel awful.  Sometimes, I’ll find myself all in a mess.  A big mess.  More often than I care to admit. I know better. Why?  Why didn’t I stop for a moment?  Why didn’t I question my actions beforehand?  I have what I call a ‘Christian’s Conscious’.  God gave it to me.  I just need to stop for a moment and listen.

I’m a sinner saved by grace.  I’m loved and forgiven.  Each day I can study His word.  It’s sitting right here.  Do I use it everyday?  How much time?  Do I pray?  Not just in the car or working outdoors, but deep in prayer for forgiveness and for needs and for praises and for direction...?  One more thing...

Seek His will in all you do

♫

Many, many times over the years, I have found myself humming or singing and not even being aware of it, let alone knowing how long nor how many songs I’d gone thru.  Sometimes it’s Christmas songs, children’s songs, contemporary Christian songs, but the vast majority are the good old hymns inside the unused pew hymnals at church.  I really miss that.  I do like the big screens with the lyrics, but what about the words on the pages inside that hymn book?
  
Let me think... my favorite songs are:

Victory in Jesus

The Old Rugged Cross

When the Roll is Called Up Yonder

In the Garden

Wonderful Words of Life

Amazing Grace

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

When the Saints Go Marching In

Standing On the Promises

Good grief!  I’m thinking too hard and too long on this list.  You get the idea.  Those are the best songs ever.

Okay, where did this post begin?  Oh!  My point was going to be when I’m doing that humming/singing thing: I’m happy or I’m content or I’m feeling good.  I’m not sad or upset or angry or troubled.  With these songs in my head/heart, there ain’t no room for the bad stuff.

I looked up bunches of verses in Psalms about singing, rejoicing, shouting, and joyful praising.  It’s a good thing...

 

Psalm 5:11

But let all who take refuge in you rejoice;
    let them sing joyful praises forever.
Spread your protection over them,
    that all who love your name may be filled with joy.

Psalm 95:1

Come, let us sing to the Lord!
   Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.

Psalm 98:4

Shout to the LORD, all the earth; break out in praise and sing for joy!

*New Living Translation (NLT)*

come by here

Yesterday, for some reason, I had a song in my head.  I realized where it came from: Saturday summer nights at RAM’s (Resort Area Ministries).  A bunch of youth from various churches around town, would all converge at a popular campground.  We’d head out in all directions to stop at each and every camp sight and invite them to our campfire service.  It was in a large clearing area behind the showers.  We sang songs to the tune of guitar music, did some funny/stupid/hilarious/silly skits, a short devotion-like was spoken, etc.  

Anyway, the song was ‘Kumbayah’, Gullah for ‘Come By Here’.  It originated with the Gullah, an African-American people group living on the Sea Islands and adjacent coastal regions of South Carolina and Georgia. They lived there alone for hundreds of years.  The Gullah speak a dialect that most native speakers of English find unintelligible on first hearing but that turns out to be mostly heavily accented English. (And...it became a standard campfire song...)

From singing ‘Kumbaya’ years ago, it now invokes a warmness and contemplation in my heart.  How often do I ask God to ‘come by here’?   I want Him to ‘come by here’ when I’m singing praises and laughing with joy and crying with pain and earnestly praying and while I’m asleep and every time in between.                          

‘Kumbaya’

Kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya  x3
Oh Lord, kumbaya
Someone's singing Lord, kumbaya  x 3
Oh Lord, kumbayah
Someone's laughing, Lord, kumbaya  x3
Oh Lord, kumbaya
Someone's crying, Lord, kumbaya  x3
Oh Lord, kumbaya
Someone's praying, Lord, kumbaya  x3
Oh Lord, kumbaya
Someone's sleeping, Lord, kumbaya  x3
Oh Lord, kumbaya