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The sounds of barking dogs seem to penetrate the air that surrounds me and follow any path or many paths at will.  The air feels more dense or maybe closer – as if moving more protectively around me in its knowledge that fall is approaching.  (A deeper knowledge than mine is at work here.)  The barking is beginning to sound closer too – as if its freedom to bound through the air unabated is now limited, but not imprisoned.  It is ordered – no chaos allowed. 

I, too, feel fall approaching.

Today was a very fine day.  Having nothing to do with my circumstances nor the occurence of events that touch my life.  Creation, as far as my senses were free to take me, displayed a very fine day, indeed.

Decisions decisions

Making decisions is not something I am good at. I am either impetuous and make decisions too quickly or I hesitate and stall. But it seems either way my decisions are not always correct. One of the biggest problems with my decision making is I try and take everyone and everything into consideration.

Right now I am faced with a decision on whether to preach or not preach at a neighboring church. I was asked a few months ago to do it and I reluctantly said yes. Even though I am not comfortable talking in front of a lot of people, God has called me a few times to do it. I have given two sermons at my home church. We have a small congregation and everyone knows everyone else. This neighboring church is huge and the second time I spoke to the minister from there he mentioned there were two services. One early and one later at what most would consider the normal time. That surprised me and immediately set my worries on warp speed. But I still agreed. He also did mention that if I didn’t want to do it, that was OK, because they have several lay speaker who often do the preaching.

Now the problem. Recently our student minister decided he was not cut out for the ministry and he will be leaving us in a couple of weeks. And I just found out that our new minister will be in the pulpit on the Sunday I am to preach at this other church. I feel I really need to be there to greet our new minister. So, what do I do?

One of my friends has mentioned an answer to my problem. Preach the early service and let one of their lay speakers do the later one. Sounds like a good idea to me, but then I wonder, if God has called me to do this, should I bow out of half of my responsibilities?

The M.T.S.

I am not certain but I think clocks have changed over the years. Does anyone else notice that? There are supposed to be 24 hours in each day, but something has happened to a few of those hours. They disappeared and went off on their own, or there are just fewer minutes and hours than there use to be. I wonder what happened to them.Is there such a thing as a Monster Time Stealer? I haven’t seen one yet, but I sure have noticed his dirty deeds. When I start a project, whether it be a necessary one or a trivial one, time seems to fly like the wind. Of course it could be that there is just too much to get done in one day. Nada, I will never believe that. So it has to be the M.T.S.

I wish someone would capture that varmint and send him to another planet so I can actually finish whatever I start.

Parsing for Santification

On the Christian’s way toward sanctification, I believe it becomes necessary to parse (separate into parts in order to inspect) one’s own behavior.
We must examine motive, means, our thinking, and desires which together interrelate to produce the fruit of our hearts. For we pilgrims know that our outward behavior is totally dependent upon the condition of our hearts.
All that we say, in words and/or attitude, and all that we do or leave undone—our fruit—expose to the eye of our own parsing the maturity of our sanctification.
Peace and Happy Parsing,
Vicki