encouragement | Ain't Complicated

Why Do You Exist?

Why were you born?

Are you a child born out of wedlock?

Or a child clearly not planned for by your parents?

Your presence on this planet may well be the result of your parents petitioning God for a gift. Then all I have to say to you here is this: Get on with fulfilling the vision of your parents and the purposes of God!

On the other hand, my dear reader, your presence here may not have been requested by your parents. For all that I know, you may be a so-called “illegitimate child…” Take heart! Not only are you just as legitimate a child as anyone else, you are on this planet by special divine appointment. God chose to put you here! Get on with fulfilling His vision and purposes!

A Child for the Lord

Be faithful to your mission here on planet Earth! Read it all

Established for Demolished

Are you demolished? Because your works are collapsing?

I heard Psalm 90 read in one of our Sunday services. This verse really connected with me:

“And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it” (Psalm 90:17).

Read it all

Check the Rebel Sigh

And the rising doubt, too.

Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh;
Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear.
To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh,
Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.

Yep, Spirit of God, Descend upon My Heart was one of the songs we sang in church tonight.

That is quite the stanza — so pertinent to me!

I’m just noticing, though, that the author seemed to think the patience learned through unanswered prayer would check both rising doubts and rebel sighs.

Oh. My.

It seems I’ve certainly had plenty of some of those…

Gratefulness, a Statement of Faith

“If today isn’t a thanksgiving day for me,
I need to adopt gratefulness
as a statement of faith.”
-Mark Roth

Another short post: Thank you, Lord.

And this on Twitter: Read it all

A Heart Caressed

I stood at our dining table not that long ago this evening, droopy of eye and droopy of spirit.

Scanning the table for something different, I saw it: a little, dark blue, hardcover book. Daily Strength for Daily Needs, declares the gold print on the spine.

I opened it randomly. Oh, hey! A day-by-day devotional book. And what, pray tell, might I find for today? Read it all

Is Any Afflicted?

As I shuffled through the cemetery’s expired grass this evening — troubled — a verse fragment suddenly dashed almost furtively through my chilly, swirling cranial fog.

Is any afflicted?

Now where did that come from? And what is the answer? Read it all

Presumption: “Behold, I Thought”

Naaman was mad. Very angry, in fact.

It’s no wonder. He had a huge, monstrous, humanly-insurmountable need.

He had come a long way for a solution. And a divine solution at that. He’d had plenty of time to develop a certain scenario, a specific sequence of events that should transpire.

In other words, he had his own idea on how things were going to happen Read it all