Press Pause

“Take a break from the action; press pause on the music; take a moment to rest.”

Loren Thornburg

They call it the most wonderful time of the year, but I often find it to be the most  stressful time of the year with all the shopping and parties and traveling.  As I anticipate all the craze that is to come I am reminded that I need to pause so that I can enjoy it all.  The pause button is a convenient feature on movie and music players that allows for a temporary rest or stop.  I find I could use this in my life much more often than I do.  I don’t have to stop what I am doing altogether, but I can simply take a step away for a few moments to regain perspective and composure on the action and activity of my life.  When the emotions start swirling around me I can pause to rest, reflect, and see things more as they really are rather than get carried away by the craziness of it all.  If we could hit pause more often we might be able to prevent having “stop” pressed for us because we reached the point of exhaustion or burn out.  Take a moment to rest.  Press pause on your life.  It will still be there to press play again soon. 

“But all who listen to me will live in peace, untroubled by fear of harm.”

Proverbs 1:33 NLT

Something happens when we pause.  We start to hear; we hear our thoughts and the cries of our heart.  Now they are not always fun thoughts or thoughts we want to have, but it is in hearing them that we can address them.  It is in stopping that we can hear more than our thoughts, but what the Lord is saying about those thoughts.  When we pause long enough to listen to His voice something happens...peace.  Listening to God brings peace because His voice, His words are life.  It is in this peace that we will be untroubled by fear of harm or the chaos around us.  Now I don’t mean this as a formula to avoid harm, but rather that even in the midst of trouble when we stop to listen for His voice we can find peace even there.  You see it is not so much about being at peace because there wasn’t a fear of harm, but peace in the midst of it because His voice does that, it brings peace.  Now that is something worth stopping for.  So whatever surrounds you, whatever chaos is to come get good at stopping, at pausing to hear the voice that leads to peace.  

2012 Devotional Books are available for purchase.  The proceeds helps raise money for Competitive Edge International.  Email me if you are interested in ordering.  

More than Food

“If you can’t find it on the inside you won’t find it on the outside.”

Thanksgiving wasn’t always about the food.  It began with what you might expect by the name; a day to give thanks and prayers.  In 1789 President Washington wanted to institute a “public thanksgiving and prayer” devoted to “the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”    It wasn’t about the food, it wasn’t about the decorations, it wasn’t about the house, it wasn’t about anything but thanks.  Thanks isn’t something you find in the things you think you might, because if you don’t find it inside of you nothing on the outside will sustain it for you.  We spend so much time focusing on looking put together and a good presentation that we miss what we are really searching for in those things...contentment.  We want to feel good about who we are and the direction we are headed.  We look all over for it but it’s not an outside-in process.  It only works inside-out.  Stop looking for what you already have...the capacity to be thankful.  Acknowledge and never stop that which you have to be thankful for and as you keep acknowledging you will find a new way of seeing, a new way of being...content...it starts with thanks.  

“You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are--no more, no less.  That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.”

Matthew 5:5 Message

The blessing is not in the receiving but in not needing to.  God calls us to be thankful and content because He knows how that will bless and shape our lives.  He knows we have every reason in Him to be thankful and how much we need to be thankful.  It protects us from the destruction and harm of envy, jealousy and discontent.  It provides us with joy even in the hard places.  Thankfulness brings us back to Him the giver of all we have to be thankful for.  So you see it’s for us.   If you are searching for blessing ask for contentment and keep asking.  You will find more than you ever wanted on the feet of thankfulness.  

2012 Devotional Books are available for purchase.  The proceeds helps raise money for Competitive Edge International.  Email me if you are interested in ordering.  

Cultivate Thankfulness

“Our lives grow that which has been planted.”

Loren Thornburg

I hope some day to have a backyard like my parents.  Yet I know all the hours of work it takes to make that happen.  I am fully aware that in order to have a backyard full of trees, flowers, fruits and vegetables it takes the work of planting each of those seeds and plants into the ground and the work of cultivating them.  I would never expect my own backyard to look like that without time and work being spent to plant and maintain it.  Yet, somehow I do that with my own life.  I look and wonder why it doesn’t look more fruitful when the reason is that those things have not been planted or cultivated.  It takes work and time.  So then the question becomes what things do I want to grow in my life.  What things do you want to grow in your life?  Start planting now, keep cultivating, and let those things grow up in you.  It’s never too late to cultivate.  

“...And cultivate thankfulness….And sing, sing your hearts out to god! Let every detail in you lives--words, actions, whatever--be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.”

Colossians 3:15-17 Message

Colossians 3 is a listing of what it looks like to follow Jesus.  One of the key things mentioned is thankfulness.  Paul says to thank God every step of the way.  Now that seems like a very difficult task.  It seems a tall order for a life filled with difficulty and obstacles to thank God in each step through the trials.   Yet we are called to cultivate thankfulness.  Cultivate means to promote or improve the growth of something by labor and attention.  It is a process that requires time and work.  It doesn’t happen overnight as I would prefer that it would.  I have to plant seeds of thankfulness in my heart and mind in order for them to grow up and out of my life.  I have to be intentional about remembering what I am thankful for even when I don’t feel thankful.  I have to because God calls us to and He calls us to because He knows how much we need this in order to walk through the trial before us.  Our lives grow that which has been planted.  Cultivate Thankfulness. 

2012 Devotional Books are available for purchase.  The proceeds helps raise money for Competitive Edge International.  Email me if you are interested in ordering.  

More to Come

More to Come

“Be present where you are with a present awareness that there is more life to come.”

Loren Thornburg

Life is so interesting and full of ups and downs.  This weekend on the same day that I celebrated the wedding of a friend I also found myself saddened as other friends lost their house to a fire.  As I engaged with people at the wedding I found more losses going on of health, of joy, of dreams all mixed in between other celebrations of the same.  Somehow I left thankful.  Thankful because I began the day in the midst of seeing only my own frustrations and losses and found as I entered into the lives around me I have much to celebrate even in my losses.  Now I don’t mean because someone else has it worse I should be thankful, although I can’t help but think that too.  I mean regardless of looking around me I have life and I have much to be thankful for.  It is the losses that remind me that the gifts I have are not guaranteed to stay.  So while they are here I want to enjoy them.  There is a time to grieve and mourn what was lost, but now is always the time to be presently aware of all I have been given that brings me life.  

“There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next.  In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged.  Quite the contrary--we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!”

Romans 5:3-5 Message

Paul knew the secret to praising in the midst of trial and loss.  He is reminding the believers here in Romans that thankfulness in these challenges is possible when we remember there is more to come.  With this in view we can shout praise even when troubles surround us.  In keeping our eyes on Him, beyond the troubles we can stay alert to what God is doing and will do next.  We don’t feel “shortchanged” or bitter from the hand life has dealt us, but rather we see how much we have been given that we don’t deserve and how much more there is to come.  It says, “we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit.”  Do you see how He has done that and is doing that?  And He doesn’t stop there, there is more to come.  There is more life than what we find here.  So whether you are celebrating or mourning you can be thankful that there is always more to come when we walk with Jesus...more joy, more life, more freedom.  It’s coming, He’s coming, He’s here.   

2012 Devotional Books are available for purchase.  The proceeds helps raise money for Competitive Edge International.  Email me if you are interested in ordering (thorny424@hotmail.com).