Thanks and Giggles

My kids and I were trying to make a video for the Thanksgiving Worship Service.  It was going so well because my 2 youngest know Psalm 100 by heart.  They recited the psalm perfectly.  They even got their older brother involved and it went OK.

Then the giggles started. They tried to contain it but it was a tsunami of biblical proportions.  There was no stopping it!  They stopped without the last verse of Psalm 100!

At first I was disappointed.  Such sacrilege   They should be reverent and proper when reciting the Bible!  But then I saw it as I think is right: they were thankful in their heart and the joy of living in God's hands spilled over into their activities.  Oh that I always had the joy of the LORD so evident in my life.

Enjoy the video!  BTW: Verse 5 - "For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations!"

Boxes

I have this insane joy each time I empty a box, unceremoniously tear off the tape, and put the box in the garage.  Doesn't that seem odd?  You have to understand that 2 weeks ago our house was filled with boxes that came from Minnesota that were packed 6 months ago!  We packed up our world in the middle of the summer and haven't been able to restore that world since.  We have been living on the bare necessities for all of this time.  That is OK but it leaves us in an unsettled and rootless state of mind.

(The Game is "Where's Maria?")

And then as we open each box we get to look the contents and think of possible places it will work.  Sometimes it is easy to place the items in a fitting place to be used again.  Case in point: deodorant and razors.  Necessary.  Needed.  I know where to store them.  While other times we leave the contents in the box because the place is not readily known.  Our dining room is full of boxes for the pantry and will be for some time.

Dining Room Boxes

So each box gets emptied and placed where it is supposed to be.  I think that the boxes have multiplied since we packed them in MN.  How that happens is not known to me but it just seems that way.  So, we needed to upgrade our storage potential by putting up more shelves.  I am unsure whether this is good since that just means we can accumulate more stuff that we don't need.  But there is joy in seeing items come from boxes that used to be part of everyday life and have been missed.

This entire process reminds me of when I first came to know Jesus.  The first few months were a wonderful time of adventure.  God was unpacking the various areas (boxes) of my life and determining where they fit into the life we lived together.  We looked at the big issues like my music, my relationships, my parties, even my ethics.  We looked at small issues too. It is difficult to put into words how each day was a joy to unwrap.  Life was much more simple then.

To paraphrase Ecclesiastes, "Of the unpacking of boxes there is no end."  Today, there are many more areas to unpack and not every "box" fits nicely into my life.  The boxes are usually the same with minor variations but I have become better at unpacking them.  The more unpacking I do with Jesus, the better I get at knowing where things fit if they do at all.  It continues to be a joy to unpack an area of my life and figure out where it fits into my life with Jesus.  It is all the process of getting settled with Jesus.

Family Room

God Makes Me Laugh

I talked with Linda today.  She is the prayer coordinator from church.  We met at McD's to talk about ministry at church, an upcoming Pastor's retreat, and to get to meet her.  We talked about so many things but I remember the conversation about her journey with Christ over the years.  She told me stories of how God had always been faithful to her family through the ups and downs and the in between times.  The dry times and the times when she knew that she was doing God's will.  The mountain tops and the dark valleys.  After a few stories she stopped and said, "God.  He just makes me laugh sometimes."  

It so apparent that Linda was overwhelmed by God's faithfulness to her.  This woman's heart was completely filled with exuberant joy when she recalled how she was never lost or alone.  She was always in the presence of her heavenly Father and he was always directing her path.  More importantly, she knew this to be clearly evident in her life.  

Do I laugh with joy in my heart when I look back to see God's hand at work in my life?  Oh yeah I do!  It is a well spent and worthwhile moment when I trace the line of God's shaping the events of my life.  I don't hit pause and recall God's goodness as often as I would like.  But when I do pause, it is so easy to see how God has wired me, how he has prepared me, how he has led me to the place I am today.  It is clear that my God has been so good to me.  

God makes me laugh too!