Series: Advent
Psalm 86:3-4 ESV
Nehemiah 8:10 ESV
Isaiah 55:8-12 ESV
Today it’s freakishly cold outside where I live.
That’s not actually a problem for me because I’m pretty accustomed to it. I also remind Myself that I’ve lived in this climate for many many decades and I survived it.
I also remind myself that Montana is even colder.
Psalm 86:3-4 tells us, “Be gracious to me, O Lord, for to you do I cry all the day.
Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.”
Be gracious to me, O Lord when it’s cold.
In all my complaining I am reminded of my great-grandmother who left the Midwest in 1910 to homestead to Montana.
She traveled with my great-grandfather and my grandfather by covered wagon.
She set up house in a place that could be much colder than where I live. They built a home. My grandfather was about twelve years old when they made the ‘trek’ north.
My great-grandfather became ill and he died in Montana.
I was told that she stayed as long as she could but conditions were harsh and she eventually made her way by covered wagon back to the Midwest. I knew my great-grandmother. My grandfather, her only child was born in 1903. She was born in 1879 and she died the year I graduated from high school.
She was preceded in death by her first husband, her only son, and both grandsons (my dad and my uncle). She was one of the kindest women I knew. I remember she had a ‘far away’ look in her eyes.
She was a woman of faith.
I didn’t know it at the time but I now know she was yearning…praying ‘be gracious to me Lord, I cry for you.’
She was longing for the joy of the Lord.
As Nehemiah said to Israel in Nehemiah 8:10, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
When I was young I came across Isaiah 55 and it has always given me great comfort. Even when I do not understand I am reminded that God knows. God’s thoughts are higher and greater than my thoughts.
We read in Isaiah 55:8-12,
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.”
In the end, God’s thoughts of us are really all that matter.
God loves us with a mighty love that we cannot understand.
Spiritual Practice: God’s Love
God thinks of You with a great love you cannot comprehend. Think on God’s thoughts for you.
In God, Deborah
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