“Footprints in the Sand”

Photo by Suzi Rosenberg

Day 27

I love the poem “Footprints in the Sand”.  It reminds me that Jesus not only walks with me when I need Him but at times He even carries me.  I can depend completely on Him when I feel inadequate.

Footprints in the Sand

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.
Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.
Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,
other times there were one set of footprints.
This bothered me because I noticed
that during the low periods of my life,
when I was suffering from
anguish, sorrow or defeat,
I could see only one set of footprints.
So I said to the Lord,
“You promised me Lord,
that if I followed you,
you would walk with me always.
But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life
there have only been one set of footprints in the sand.
Why, when I needed you most, you have not been there for me?”
The Lord replied,
“The times when you have seen only one set of footprints in the sand,
is when I carried you.”
By Mary Stevenson
We all need someone to be there for us in difficult times.

I woke up to the sound of the phone ringing.  I looked at my alarm clock. Three a.m.

I heard my dad talking on the phone in serious tones. He was asking about my older brother, Ervan.  When I heard him ask, “Is he going to live?” I knew something terrible had happened to my brother.

For the next few months most of my parent’s time was given to visiting my sick brother in the hospital. When he was finally well enough to come home they were busy taking care of him. They had to prepare special meals for him, and feed him, and change his dressings among other things. In time he healed and became independent again.

While my brother was sick he depended on my parents. My parents never neglected the rest of us but like a shepherd caring for a lame lamb until he is healed they had to give him a lot of extra care. During this time I’m sure my brother developed a very close relationship with my mom and dad because they spent so much time together.

There are times in our lives too that as His child God has to carry us.  We depend on him completely.  Sometimes it’s as we go through a difficult time in our life, like a divorce or an illness, or a financial crisis.  When situations are out of our control and we feel lost He comes and walks the dark hills reaching His hands out to us and carries us back to that safe place close to Him.  He cares for us as we depend completely on Him.

A shepherd has to leave his other sheep as he looks for the lost or hurt lamb, and a parent is forced to neglect the healthy child temporarily because of  their limitations. Unlike the shepherd and our parents, God isn’t limited.  He is with us 100% of the time while He is with the extra needy 100% of the time.  He never leaves us or forsakes us.
“If a man has a hundred sheep, and one wanders away and is lost, what will he do?  Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others and go into the hills to search for the lost one?”  Matthew 18:12 [The Living Bible]

“God has said, ‘I will never, never fail you nor forsake you.’” Hebrews 13:5 [The Living Bible]
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I want to walk with you spiritually this year, inviting you to read the Bible through from cover to cover; from Genesis 1 all the way to Revelation 22:21.  If that sounds too difficult for you and your kids, you can join in again after you have taken a break or join us for the days you’re up to it.  We will start on Sunday, January 18th and finish Saturday, January 16, 2010.  I promise that you will understand the Bible in a much deeper way if you read it through from cover to cover in a year’s time.

Accept my challenge to read the Bible through in one year chronologically, including the Old and the New Testament.

Day 27 Today read:
Exodus 4:1-5:21
Matthew 18:1-20
Psalm 22:19-31
Proverbs 5:15-21

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Practicing Kindness

“Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God has forgiven you because you belong to Christ.”  Ephesians 4:32

Just because the Bible teaches us to be kind doesn’t mean it’s easy to do.  We often don’t want to be kind to the person who could benefit from it.  Sometimes it’s because we are feeling selfish, or we have been hurt by that person and don’t want to forgive him. Sometimes we think we are too busy to help him.

There are two special Bible stories that first come to my mind when I think of kindness. The one is of Joseph.  Even after his brothers hatefully sold him as a slave he helped them.  When they came to Egypt to buy grain he tested their motives but in his heart he forgave them.  Eventually he told them who he was and made a way for them to come live in Egypt so they would have food.

The other story is the well known account of the Good Samaritan.  He went out of his way to help a needy stranger that was hurt.  He was on his way to somewhere but when he saw the hurt stranger he had compassion; he had pity on him. He bandaged his wounds, poured oil and wine on them to clean them and to help heal them, and then he put him on his own donkey and took him to a safe place.  He even paid the innkeeper to take care of him and promised to come back to complete his mission of kindness.

We should definitely be kind to our friends and the people in our lives that are kind to us; that is the easy part.  God also wants us to be kind and help any person in our life whom we can help. God promises us that if we love even our enemies and help them He will reward us. If you are merciful to others God will be merciful to you.  He will bring people to you to help you with your problems too.

The Fruit of the Spirit

“But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control;” Galatians 5: 22

Because we live close to the Rocky Mountain foothills and the altitude is so high in Calgary, we have to adapt our gardening habits. Backyard green houses are very common or garden frames. I can get a head start on my gardening if I start my plants in the house in early spring or buy young plants at the end of May.

This last March I was very impatient.  I wanted spring to come and decided to help it along by starting my plants, in the house, way too early.  By the end of April the dahlias were already two feet tall and my oriental lilies were already blooming on my kitchen table.  When I finally set my dahlias out they blossomed beautifully all summer and even now are displaying huge saucer size colorful blooms. But my oriental lilies died off within a week leaving the green stems to remind me of my impatience.

One spring I was fascinated by the scarlet flowered beans that grow to the top of the fence.  I started some on my window sill. They sprouted so quickly and their tendrils curled all over my chairs and TV trays in the dining room window.  By May the snow was gone and the sun was shining brightly. When I got up in the morning it was at least 10 degrees centigrade. The bean tendrils were already three feet long and I knew I was trying my husband’s patience with my inside garden.

Then and there I decided I too had had enough of these plants evading on my dinner plate so next morning out they went.  I knew better.  I know you’re supposed to harden your plants off before you plant them outdoors but it’s such a tedious procedure.  First you set the plant out on the patio in the sun for a very short time and then take it in.  The next day you put it out longer and every day a little longer until it gets used to the outdoor coolness and atmosphere. Then you can finally plant it. Even then you may have to cover it on cool nights and cooler days. I had lots of writing to do and decided to just plant them against the fence.  For a couple of days I had beautiful green bean plants running up my poles but slowly most of them just shriveled up and slowly died. 

This hard, time consuming work of tending vegetables and flowers makes me think of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We try different tactics to sprout and grow them ourselves in our lives. We even have some success.

 Just like my plants that did so well in my warm sunny kitchen we can display symptoms of the fruit of the Holy Spirit as long as we practice them in a controlled environment. It’s easy to show love to others and be patient with people as long as everything is peaceful and we are in control.  But then things start going wrong. We get super busy and run out of time. We get frustrated and go back to our old habits of blaming others for my problems.

 Sometimes we try so hard and it seems no matter how many different tactics we try, no fruit appears.  That reminds me of the Lily of the Valley roots I purchased and not one of them grew.  Even my young Peony plant was stunted in its growth.  This time I knew I wasn’t too blame for failure.  I had to look further and realized I had bought these roots on sale at a hardware store.  They just weren’t healthy roots. I promised my self to buy all of my roots and bulbs at the renowned garden centre next year.

At times we too forget the source of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We even attempt to grow these fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control relying on our own strength. Or just like my young tender plants that I set out too early and a touch of frost kills them; outside influences overcome our good inclinations.

Only the Holy Spirit can grow the fruits of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We need to be close to God, spending time with Him in prayer and reading His Word and obeying Him as He leads us. It’s only yielding to Him that brings godly fruit into our lives.

Bible Truths to Share with Your Kids:

In the Bible we read about fruits of the Holy Spirit that God wants to grow in our lives.  These fruits are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Probably most kids, even you, would like to have these characteristics.  We all try to live these values.  But it’s hard to always love, or be good or self-controlled when things aren’t going our way or we are tired or some one is giving us a hard time.

Well, I have news for you.  God doesn’t even want you to try to be these things all by yourself in your own strength.  He wants to grow these characteristics in you.  He does that when you spend time with Him.

 Just like you are influenced by other kids when you spend time with them and become kind of like them, you are influenced by God when you spend time with Him and become like Him.

  You can spend time with God by reading the Bible and listening to what He wants to say to you.  You also spend time with Him when you pray to Him or when you go to a Bible Study or Prayer time at church with your friends. The more time you spend with God the more fruit the Holy Spirit produces in your life if you let Him. 

Jesus says He is like a vine to us and we are like the branches of that vine. The branches get life from the vine so we bear fruit that the vine bears. We are blessed to be chosen by the God of the universe to be in such a close relationship with Him.