This is the Way God Wants You to Live

Greetings,

Over the weekend I was doing laundry for when one glorious second it seemed as though I had actually done every last bit.  All the bins were empty.  The whites were bright. The delicates were carefully drying on their special rack. The darks were neatly folded.  And I was pleased at this rare accomplishment. Then Jorge walked in with six wet and soiled towels from giving the dogs a bath.  (I only have Hershey, but my son’s two pets, Mili and Trooper, were weekend guests).  I was a tad dismayed, but before a complaint could even leave my mouth, I heard God’s gentle whisper:

“Yenisita, would you rather be pounding the towels on a rock by a dirty river somewhere?”

Praise Him for not mincing words. I immediately started thanking Him for the luxury of electricity and appliances that do most of the work.  I expressed gratitude for hot water and hypoallergenic detergent.  Then I started having church.

“What a blessing to have three dogs I love who are so playful and affectionate.”

“It is a good thing to have the strength and health to wash clothes.”

“Thank You, Father, that my son and his wife are able to enjoy a weekend getaway.”

“How fortunate am I that I have a special stash of towels just for the dogs!”

It’s incredible how my attitude and perspective changed. 

Most importantly, this is God’s desire for us. “Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is way God wants you to live” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

The Lord knows that when we express thanks, no matter what, it keeps our spirits lifted, our joy overflowing, and our lives blessed.

PRAYER: Dear Lord, we thank You for encouraging us to change our outlook. When we make an effort to view life from a perspective of gratitude, we are blessed and more joyful. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.

A Psalm of Thanksgiving (Psalm 138 The Message Version)

A Psalm of Thanksgiving~ (Psalm 138 The Message Version)

Dear Lord, Thank You! Everything in me says “Thank You!” Angels listen as I sing my thanks. I kneel in worship facing Your holy temple and say it again: “Thank You!” Thank You for Your love, thank You for Your faithfulness; Most Holy is Your name, most Holy is Your Word. The moment I called out, You stepped in; You made my life large with strength. When they hear what You have to say, God, all earth’s kings will say “Thank You.” They’ll sing of what You’ve done: “How great the glory of God!” And here’s why: God, high above, sees far below; no matter the distance, You know everything about me. Save me with Your hand. Finish what You started in me, God. Your love is eternal—don’t quit on me now.

Happy Thanksgiving, and God bless you~

Attitude of Gratitude

Greetings,

Yesterday I tried logging into an old credit card account, and I was denied access.  I could not remember the password, and I had to reset the whole thing by answering questions - What's the name of your favorite elementary school teacher?  - and then waiting for them to email me a new one.

Passwords grant us access, and God has one too! No need to ever reset or wait for a message either.

"Enter with the password: 'Thank You!' Make yourselves at home, talking praise. Thank Him, Worship Him" (Psalm 100:4 The Message Version).

Gratitude grants us access to God, and this is a really big deal.  First because we need Him way more than He needs us. Second because this attitude of gratitude helps us shift our focus off what's wrong with our life to everything that's right with our life. It changes our complaining spirit into a joyful one.  It replaces pessimism with hope and sadness with gladness. The most important message in this verse is that it contains no ifs, ands, or buts.

Enter with gratitude, but only if you feel like it.

Make yourself at home, but only if you have no problems and everything is going perfectly in your life.

Thank Him, but only when you get your own way and no one is mistreating you.

We are to be thankful at all times no matter what, and if He says we can do it, then we can.

PRAYER: Dear Lord, Help us to be thankful. It is so important to honor You, and as always, we are blessed by doing things Your way.  Thanking You keeps us joyful and calm.  It magnifies You over everything we face.  Help us, Lord. In Jesus' name, AMEN. 

Thank You

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, but  it kind of irritates me that most stores bypass Thanksgiving altogether and go straight to all the toys and sparkling lights of Christmas.  Not me!  I will not co-mingle this special holiday by putting up any Christmas anything until the week after. My decor is exclusively all about turkeys and fall foliage. I especially love the brilliant Thanksgiving arts and crafts my kids did when they were little and putting them on display.

I also find myself especially focused on how important it is to be grateful, but I know there are many of us in a difficult season of life who might need a little jumpstart - who could use a gentle reminder that there are always reasons to acknowledge that our lives are full of blessings.  For that we turn to the Holy Word of the Living and Mighty God:

Thank You that You are good and Your love endures forever (Psalm 107:1).

Thank You that we are Yours. You are our God, You made us, and we are Your people. You are good and Your faithfulness endures to all generations (Psalm 100:1-5).

Thank You for the good gifts from above. We receive Your joy, hope, peace, and healing (James 1:17).

Thank You that You comfort us. You are our salvation; We will trust and not be afraid. You are our strength and our song (Isaiah 12: 1-6).

We acknowledge Your name. We express gratitude for that Holy Powerful Healing name (Hebrews 13:15)!

Your peace rules in our hearts, and we are thankful (Colossians 3:15).

Thank You that Your mercies are new every single morning (Lamentations 3:23).

It is good to give thanks to You and sing praises to Your name. We declare Your steadfast love and faithfulness over our lives. You have made us glad (Psalm 92:1-15).

Thank You that You are always near to us (Psalm 75:1).

We are thankful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:28).

AMEN~

                                                                                                            

Isa's Eulogy - Part Three

For those of you just joining us, the past few and the next few DEVOs are dedicated to my beloved mother-in-law who passed away July 19th after a 17-day battle with cancer.  It was so sudden, and the family is still processing this unexpected loss.  Nevertheless, as Christians we are encouraged to always look for ways to be thankful in every situation.  I have been doing just that, and I realize that the reason God tells us to be grateful is because it has tremendous benefits for our souls.  Below is the continuation of her eulogy...

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During Isa's final hours we  -  her husband, daughters-in-law, kids, and grandkids  -  11 of us in total  -  crowded around her hospital bed in the ICU and prayed, shared stories, and sang; we all realized that being right next to her, holding her hands, kissing her forehead, rubbing her arms was a extraordinary  privilege and a gift that not everyone receives. Such a monumental reason to be grateful.

We also found ourselves being thankful for everything from rubber gloves, Purell,  and trashcans, to clean bed sheets, non-skid socks, and air conditioning.  Mostly, though, we were deeply moved by the caring, spitfire nurse, Virgie, who worked non-stop to make our mom comfortable.  We told her too, and she said, "They don't call me the energizer bunny for nothing!"  Peace descended on that room in palpable ways.

And then my daughter, Rachel,  confided in all of us that the day she has a little girl, she will name her "Elisabel" in honor of our Isa, her grandmother.  Did I mention that Rachel is pregnant right now? We don't know the gender yet, but regardless, the day a little girl comes along, she will carry that most beautiful name! Amen~

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1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 "Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Whatever happens, give thanks, because it is God's will in Christ Jesus that you do this."

I can testify that the verse above is possible. Even in the midst of very difficult circumstances, when we pray through the pain, when we share funny stories in spite of our sorrow, when we give thanks not for the cancer but because God is still on His throne, cancer or not, when we do what God desires,  unexpected blessings of joy and peace come our way.

Whenever I start to think of that night we said good bye to Isa, my first thoughts are always to the gratitude we all shared, from the smallest detail (Amen! for nurse call buttons) to the greatest one (We will reunite with Isa someday).  Somehow, practicing our faith, praying, looking for ways to be thankful, creates a powerful buffer for our souls that  keeps the joy in and the depression out!

PRAYER: Dear Lord, We all have reasons to be thankful.  Open our eyes to the many blessings in our lives and keep our focus on You - our Redeemer and Comforter. In Jesus' name, AMEN. 

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You~

Good morning,

My family just keeps growing!  This past year we have added Tucker, Trooper, Hershey, and just this past weekend, Blue.  An Australian Cattle dog from the Blue Heeler category, and she is a cutie! Thank you, God, for blessing our lives with furry friends.  And while we are on the subject of things we give thanks for, I want to take a moment to talk about my kids.

When they were little I was CONSTANTLY reminding them to say, “Thank you.” I wanted to make sure they were appreciative of gifts they had received or compliments they were given.  And then one day something magical happened! Before I could get the words out of my mouth, Miss five-year-old Rayray said it on her own in response to something my mother-in-law gave her.  I knew at this point that my work was done.  And I was right; I have not had to remind her again, and I am pleased to report that both she and her brother are grateful kids who even thank Jorge and me for any and every parental gesture.

Being thankful is key if we want to have a happy life.  Studies have shown that grateful people are happier in general and have a more positive outlook in life.  And I think the best way to prove this is to look at the opposite of thankfulness, which thesaurus.com provides over 50 words for.  Words like, demanding, faultfinding, grumbling, selfish, ingrate, dissatisfied…

Try spending even 20 minutes with someone who is always finding fault, grumbling and complaining, and tell me if it’s not completely exhausting.  If this kind of attitude drains the joy and sucks the life out of us, can you imagine what it does to the actual ingrate? 

GOD provides a powerful antidote – Psalm 136. No matter what is happening or has happened or will happen, there is always something to be thankful for.

This Psalm, gives us one powerful reason: God’s love never quits!

Here are a few verses…

Thank God! He deserves your thanks. His love never quits.
Thank the Lord of all lords. His love never quits.

Thank the miracle-working God, His love never quits.
The God whose skill formed the cosmos, His love never quits.
The God who filled the skies with light, His love never quits.
The sun to watch over the day, His love never quits.
Moon and stars as guardians of the night, His love never quits.
God remembered us when we were down, His love never quits.
Rescued us from the trampling boot, His love never quits.
Takes care of everyone in time of need. His love never quits.
Thank God, who did it all! His love never quits!

The same God who works miracles, formed the earth, and remembers us when we are down, loves us with an unstoppable love.  Let’s allow that, and not all the problems we face, be our focus, then we can’t help but be thankful.

PRAYER: Dear Lord, Thank You, Thank You, Thank You! You never give up on us, and Your persistent and powerful love never quits.  Thank You that we can always count on You.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Blue~

Of Course Not!!!

Good morning~




One of the things I love about you all is that you ask great questions! Yesterday I received a doozy.



"If God's mercies are new every morning, why not just take advantage of His unending goodness and do what you want?"



Back in 1978 at the ripe ol' age of 13 God allowed me a glimpse into the life of someone who lived recklessly precisely because he was taking advantage of God's forgiveness.



"B" was a husband and father with three teen aged sons when he started an inappropriate relationship with another woman. I barely knew about sex much less infidelity, but I recognized sorrow when I saw it. His family was devastated, and while the exact details of how it all came out are fuzzy, I distinctly remember him saying, "God forgives me everyday. I am not going to stop seeing this woman."



I knew in my heart that what he was saying was wrong, but I also knew that God forgives. And all that confusion was put on the back burner until I had to face certain tragedies in my own family. So as I sit here and write this today I want to, more than anything else, bring clarification. Can you imagine this man's poor wife praying and God saying to her, "He keeps on asking for forgiveness, so it's ok?"



Romans 6:1 "So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?"



God keeps forgiving, and Amen! to that. But we died to sin the instant we said yes to Christ. Notice the word "died." It's past tense. If we have truly died to a wrong way of living and thinking, then we should not be following it.



In other words, Mr. B, your viewpoint was wrong then, and it's wrong now.



Only God can judge Mr. B's true intentions and his soul, but if he made a legitimate decision to begin a new life with Christ, then the evidence of it should be that his old way of living was dead.



How tragic that there are those who will misuse God's love as a license to do whatever they want--not caring who they hurt in the process--as opposed to purposely trying to live right precisely because God loves us. (I wonder if Mr. B would have changed his behavior if he could have seen into the future and seen the devastation that continues in his childrens' lives to this very day?)



In other words, God offers us a new life, overflowing with love, peace, joy, hope, goodness, kindness, mercy, and forgiveness, and our response should be one of gratitude not disobedience.



Proverbs 26:11 "As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his foolishness."



That's a rough verse, but it's in the Bible for a reason. There will always be those who want to hang on to sin, and it is plain disgusting.



We, on the other hand, are not foolish. We are wise. Wise enough to know that a blessed and beautiful life comes from right living. Notice I said right living--not perfect living.



Let's tie it all up tomorrow:)



PRAYER:

Dear Lord, Thank You for Your Word, which guides us day-to-day. Sometimes life is confusing, but one thing we do know is that we can not live without You. We never want to take advantage of Your generous outpouring of blessings, so help us and those we love stay on the right track. And we especially pray today for our kids. If anyone of them is struggling to do the right thing, empower them to make the right decision. In Jesus' name, Amen~