And if God cares so wonderfully

 

for wildflowers that are here today

 

and thrown into the fire tomorrow,

 

he will certainly care for you.

 

Why do you have so little faith?

Matthew 6:30

 

 

Quiet porch thoughts while watching the very early morning sun brilliantly backlight jumbled strands of pink pearl clouds…

 

Why worry over tomorrow’s questions that have no available answers today?

 

I’ve no way of knowing what’s going to happen this afternoon…much less tomorrow or next week or month or year.

 

What you ought to say is,

 

“If the Lord wants us to,

 

we will live and do this or that.”

James 4:15

 

So, at those fork-in-the-thought-process moments, instead of racing down multiple “what if” paths…

 

How about…

 

Choosing to reframe the problem as a cleverly disguised, obstacle course and faith-building opportunity?

 

Look at the birds.

 

They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns,

 

for your heavenly Father feeds them.

 

And aren’t you far more valuable

 

to him than they are?

 

Can all your worries

 

add a single moment to your life?

Matthew 6:26-27

 

 

I love unexpected glimpses of God’s little criss-crosses of purpose running through the tapestry of my life. It always reminds me that He knows what He’s doing; and that all the stray threads dangling off the edge do have purpose and will eventually be woven back into the pattern.

 

Three years after Dan was killed, my sister-in-law and I took a hastily planned Fall Foliage tour trip to New England. The booking agent said the only reason we were able to be included was that someone else had cancelled.

 

An extended family that included a great-grandmother with two of her adult children and their spouses, from the Texas hill country, were some of our fellow travelers. Their laughter and teasing banter made it easy to see how much they enjoyed each other’s company. One of them, Debbie—a beautiful and outgoing blonde—was the quintessential Texas lady; her speech, like mine, peppered with multiple southern y’all’s.

 

The last morning of the trip, Debbie and I were alone in the hotel lobby for about 10 minutes while we waited for our airport shuttle. With tears in her eyes she told me how much she was missing her mom who had passed away; and I responded in kind, with a few sentences describing how hard it had been to lose Dan. We agreed that God was the only reason for hope, and foundation for survival, when your world unexpectedly turns upside down.

 

By the time we boarded the van, we’d texted pictures and exchanged email addresses; and I’d promised to add her to my Scripture on the go emails. The drive to the airport was filled with sharing family pictures and stories of kids and grandkids back home. Our paths criss-crossed in the airport a couple more times before we took separate planes back to different parts of Texas.

 

Back home the next day, my sister, Judy, called to say that she had a story to tell me. Seems a friend of hers, Shelly, had just called to add some new pieces to an older story.

 

Judy was one of the first people I called after I found out Dan had been killed; and she almost immediately headed to Nacogdoches from College Station. On her way, she called her good friend, Shelly, to ask her to begin praying for us.

 

Shelly now told Judy that, when she’d received Judy’s phone call for prayer three years ago, she’d been in the middle of a conversation with her daughter’s mother-in-law.

 

And, now three years later, her daughter’s mother-in-law had just returned from a fall foliage tour trip to New England. When Shelly asked about the trip, her daughter’s mother-in-law immediately began telling her about meeting a really nice lady, from Texas, whose pastor husband had been killed three years ago.

 

Shelly told my sister that, the more details she heard from her daughter’s mother-in-law, the more she realized she was hearing a story she’d already heard—three years ago when Judy called asking for prayer.

 

Shelly’s daughter is married to Debbie’s son.

 

Debbie and I arranged a phone conversation a couple of days later to talk about the amazing criss-cross that had occurred in our lives. Two Texas ladies—alone during the quietest 10 minutes of the entire New England touring trip—connected in those moments through our mutual faith in Jesus Christ.

 

But, unbeknownst to us in Cape Cod, we already shared a much longer and closer history; because, she told me during our Texas based phone call, she’d been praying for me for the past three years…ever since her son’s mother-in-law told her the story the first time.

 

We can make our plans,

 

but the LORD determines our steps.

Proverbs 16:9

 

I love love love how God always keeps the ground level at the foot of the cross…

 

We are all infected and impure with sin.

 

When we display our righteous deeds,

 

they are nothing but filthy rags.

 

Like autumn leaves,

 

we wither and fall,

 

and our sins sweep us away like the wind.

Isaiah 64:6

 

What a relief.

 

There’s not a single thing I can do that’ll make God love me any more, but thankfully, the inverse is just as true: there’s nothing I can do that’ll make him love me any less.

 

So, praise His holy name, He provides redemption and offers the miracle beginnings of new creation every single minute—of every single hour—of every single day…to every single one of us.

 

Therefore,

 

if anyone is in Christ,

 

he is a new creation.

 

The old has passed away;

 

behold,

 

the new has come.

2 Corinthians 5:17

 

And something else I love about the whole thing: it’s a private deal between me and God (and yes, I know that grammatically speaking, it’s “God and I”; but, as I told a good friend, “me and God” sounds warmer to me)

 

AND the transaction puts me in line for my next truly-out-of-this-world-transformed new beginning.

 

 

The timely timelessness of God and His word never ceases to amaze me.

 

When I was a child, I could close my eyes at night and make myself dizzy; going ‘round and ‘round trying to understand how God didn’t begin, but obviously was, and would also never end.

 

For years now I’ve emailed a somewhat daily Scripture On The Go and picture to several hundred people. I rarely go hunting for a specific verse, but  instead use one of the next-of-many I’ve previously highlighted in my study Bible.

 

One morning it just seemed right to add the quiet and God-sort-of-obvious blessing I could hear in the verse.

 

Then several months ago I began sharing them on my webpage and then to Facebook; where I tag each post with a few words that highlight the blessing.

 

Yesterday’s offering:

 

He found them in a desert land,

 

in an empty, howling wasteland.

 

He surrounded them and watched over them;

 

he guarded them as he would guard his own eyes.

 

Deuteronomy 32:10

 

The blessing: Blessings of Being Guarded

 

The tagline: The only true safety…

 

Then after everything was emailed, shared and posted, I heard the horrible news story of the two young reporters in Moneta, VA; senselessly murdered minutes before, on live television…all while doing their regular morning jobs.

 

I’ll bet it’s perfectly accurate to say that neither the reporter nor cameraman expected to die conducting that interview.

 

And I was starkly reminded once again…there is no guarantee of safety in this mortal life…but to be watched over by God, is to be safely guarded for all eternity.

 

“And I am giving them eternal life,

 

and they shall never perish,

 

and no one shall snatch them from my hand.”

John 10:28