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~ by Pat Luffman Rowland

Prayerful Pondering

Category Archives: anticipation

Recognizing God’s Purpose for Your Life

22 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by Pat Luffman Rowland in anticipation, availability, Bible study, career decisions, Christian service, communication with God, faith, focus, prayer

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Purpose

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD (Isaiah 55:8 ESV).

It feels good when we know we are using the gifts God has given. There is a sense of completion in our work. But what about the times we see our service as something here, something there, but no true focus?

I have a friend who has the very strong gift of service. She is the first to respond to any need presented. She does menial things most others would not do. The majority is time-consuming and usually not the least bit convenient. But if she didn’t do them, there would be no one to clear a house of hoarder-like clutter, no one to sit with anxious patients through hours of cancer treatment, no one to carry numerous individuals to doctors’ appointments and pick up groceries and medicine for them.  My friend doesn’t feel like what she does counts for anything. She worries that she isn’t fulfilling God’s purpose for her life. I see her as a chief example of Matthew 25:37-40; that one Jesus says is being His hands and feet.

After retirement, I had some days of wondering what I was to do. I felt without direction and I prayed about what God wanted from me, how He might use me. In time, this is what I heard: Do for every person in your life what you can and with joy. Live in each day’s opportunities. Stop projecting out to new things and stop looking back at what you’ve done in the past. BE. DO. LOVE. Serve in this way.

That wasn’t the answer I had hoped to get. I had wanted some fresh and exciting project. Yet I knew I had heard from God so I set out to do what I could for family, friends, and others I felt God had placed in my pathway. I did eventually receive a new work that I would have never seen on my own; that of tutoring second grade children.

MEGAN_TATUM_AND_JIA_GREENER

Megan and Jia, George and Martha Washington Day 2012, my first reading friends. They are now seventh graders.

Having never considered myself very good with children, this would never have made it to my personal list of possibilities, yet I can tell you that this is one of the three things I’ve done in life that I’ve enjoyed most. It is so important for us to release all struggling to God so that His perfect plans can appear.

God knows what He has put in each of us to be used and if we submit and wait on Him—and follow His nudging—that thing will become clear. And we need always to remember it isn’t about what we do, but how we do it.  Jonah knew exactly what he was to do, but he didn’t want to do it. And when he did do it, it was begrudgingly and with anger. God saved many people through Jonah, yet he was blind to the eternal value. He was seeing the appointment with his eyes and not God’s. Let us not be guilty of that.

Give your questions of purpose completely over to God, then wait and watch. Don’t be afraid of the unfamiliar if your heart says it is of God. The One who created us knows exactly where we are best suited to serve. He has plans for us and those plans will be better than anything we could imagine on our own.

God is not unjust; He will not forget your work and the love you have shown Him as you have helped His people and continue to help them (Hebrew 6:10 NIV).

 

Thinking on the Rain

13 Friday May 2016

Posted by Pat Luffman Rowland in anticipation, birds, blooming things, comfort, communication with God, earth, God's faithfulness, God's love for us, gratitude, love, nature, observation, rain

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nature

“Drip down, O heavens, from above, And let the clouds pour down righteousness; Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit, And righteousness spring up with it. I, the LORD, have created it” Isaiah 45:6 (NKJV).

_____

A grey cloud hovers overhead. It is the promise of drink for dry ground and the uplifted faces of blooming things; the promise of water enough for birds to bathe in a forsaken fount. The grey cloud covers the sun and provides shade and a cooler day for man and animal alike.

Thunder grumbles and the rain comes, spreading its kindness over the day’s needs.file0001836239952 The earth smells fresh and colors deepen as flowers and grass are clad with glistening drops of rain. The world seems to slow a bit and I can’t hold back a smile, for I love a rainy day!

It occurs to me that the simplest things color my life with happiness. Watching showers march upon the ground and sidewalks, seeing a bird wash insects from his wings in a DSCF4397new pool of water. Pondering the buds of roses about to break forth into full bloom and how their deep drink of rain will lend a hand to the process.

I think of how rain promenades on ponds, lakes, rivers, and even the sea. The larger the body of water, the more mystical a rain appears in its stroll. What sight is grander than the downpour of heaven joining waters of the yawning deep? What vision sweeter than blooming things with lifted faces catching a morning shower? DSCN4082What image more right than birds making use of a shallow basin with its fill of afternoon rains?

Lord, I long to linger in the splendor of how you’ve made things, to think on the beauty of nature without man’s interference. Where could I go and pay a price for something as wondrous as this? You give so generously of all you have fashioned; let me not miss it. It is a demonstration and continuing promise of Your love. I bow to you with grateful heart.

“For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God”(Hebrews 6:7 NKJV).

Photo credits to morgueFile, with appreciation.

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The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23 ESV

If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9

God has not given us a spirt of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7

Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations. Psalm 100:4-5

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9

© Pat Rowland and Prayerful Pondering, 2010 - 2013.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pat Rowland and Prayerful Pondering with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Hope must be in the future tense. Faith, to be faith, must be in the present tense. Catherine Marshall
Everything over your head is under his feet. Dr. Tom Lindberg
What an excellent ground of hope and confidence we have when we reflect upon these three things in prayer--the Father's love, the son's merit and the Spirit's power! Thomas Manton
Our Christian hope is that we're going to live with Christ in a new earth, where is not only no more death, but where life is what it was always meant to be. Timothy Keller

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