Family Time

God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land. Psalm 68:6



I was in New York visiting family. I love and am loved in my family. Husband, three children, three grandchildren, a sister, two uncles and cousins, (most play or have played golf!). We have our off moments now and then, but for the goodly percent of time we are friends and always family.

"Most and goodly percent" are terms that apply to the degree of believers in our family. We have one or two that do not believe (right now). They will eventually, I have no doubt. These one or two are prisoners of their stubborn hold on some old baggage. We are a loyal family, sometimes holding on to things a bit too long.

I have faith that God is working in the hearts, minds and spirits of all our family to see that our "prisoners" are led forth singing. We will all be singing when that happens. We don't plan on leaving any one of us in the sun-scorched land of not knowing. We will all praise God in the light of love before this journey is over.

Prayer Friday

Who is this coming up from the desert leaning on her lover? Song of Songs 8:5

Loving Creator, Living Christ, Help of the Holy Spirit...
I am so blessed. Glory be for the beautiful creation you have set around us. Thank you for all the beautiful souls you have placed in my life.
May I please always recognize love and return it with care and tenderness in the Spirit. Where I fail to see love may I bring it to the situation, asking not why, but what would you have me do?
Please bless all who come to this page with open eyes, ears and hearts.
In the name of our Living Christ, through the Holy Spirit...AMEN

I Love This Honesty

As the music picks up I hope you notice I added a new song. I love the honesty in this Kenny Chesney song. We all want to go to heaven, just not today !! Why not? Why not now? As I get deeper into my walk will I long to go today? I am not afraid to die. I have faith that death is the ultimate transformation into a glorious beyond. I don't believe that the Creator of this beautiful universe is just going to cut us off at death. I believe that The Creator has planned something else for my soul. I love and believe in the Living Christ. So I guess I need some work on this.
If you don't like this song, or just get tired of it, go over to the Playlist on the right side of this site and choose another one, please. I think I will leave it on for a while so I can listen to it, let it work its thought down into my deep spot.
God bless you and yours today and everyday.

Healing and Wholeness

"See how God winked at weakness and overlooked failures as He poured upon His servants grace and blessing untold. Let it be Abraham, Jacob, David, Daniel, Elijah or whom you will; honor followed honor as harvest the seed. The man of God set his heart to exalt God above all; God accepted his intention as fact and acted accordingly. Not perfection, but holy intention made the difference." p. 99 The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer.

A breathtakingly beautiful day here in south central New Mexico and I am still not back on the golf course. One reason is that I am still resting my ankle. I hope the lesson I take out of this sprain is to slow down; the phone will ring long enough for me to get there, if not, so be it, the answering machine will get it.
This time off has given me time to relive the Conference on Healing and Wholeness I attended Friday and Saturday. I have been back over my handouts and notes and bought a book by a doctor the speaker recognized as helpful. I have also finished up the Tozer book.
We have a prayer ministry at our church and have held healing services, however, we have the need to reevaluate what we are doing and in which direction we need to move. Hence, the conference with Dr. James K. Wagner. We need to focus in on our intentions. What we intend to do, how we intend to do it, why we intend to do it, all important. We will make mistakes, but God won't.
The new book I bought is Healing Words by Larry Dossey, M.D. I really am learning a lot from it. The copyright is 1993, so after I finish this post I am going to see what he has written since.
Reading Tozer and Dossey at the same time is very helpful. I love the fact that I was brought to these two books at the same time. My intention is to really listen to God's voice in this learning process. Give it over to the Holy Spirit to guide me down the path. Learning leads to knowledge which leads to wisdom which will guide my actions.

Prayer Friday

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. James 1:5-6

Loving Creator, Living Christ, Surrounding Holy Spirit...
Thank you for drawing me nearer and nearer to you each day. Your Grace is so wide and deep to fit in some one like me. I am in awe of the many signs of your loving care and in wonder over your mighty creations.
Please strengthen me in wisdom this week, the wisdom I need to walk Christ's path not my own. I am blown and tossed to often like a wave of indecision and inattention.
Please open the eyes, ears and hearts of those who have trouble finding you, Lord, so they might see the people you have already placed around them to guide them. Soften them so they may recognize you love them and have already provided their fellow travelers.
Please bless the Healing and Wellness Conference this weekend.
I pray this prayer through Christ, AMEN

Reverence Of The Lord

He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure. Isaiah 33:6



Sorry I have not been here. It has been a busy week. No golf as my ankle sprain is still bothering me. As I played through it in last week's tournament, I thought I had better treat it better this week. So ice is the name of the game. However, I have still had "places to go and people to see"! Today I help register the men playing in a tournament at our course. They donated a putter to our raffle, so this is gratitude day. Thanks fellows.

Gratitude day. Wouldn't it be nice if we treated every day as a "gratitude day"? If we payed special attention to being thankful for every little thing others do for us? Really meant our "Thank yous"?

I have spent much time this week thinking about how our Creator is the sure foundation of my life and how to share that with non-believers. How to recognize the chances God puts in front of me to witness. To explain that "fear of the Lord" means reverence not a boo/scare.

The closer we get to God, the easier it is to understand and soak in the wisdom, knowledge and love of our Maker. I want others to realize the joy of learning to sit still and just make their life open to the wonder of the Maker that made them.

May you take that time today; be filled with the wonder and love.

...that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. John 17:21

I love most golf courses. I find the diversity interesting. Some are green, hilly with lots of trees. Some are brown, flat and treeless. Some are a mix of those pieces and parts of nature. They all have sand traps, greens for putting, tees for driving, paths and trails. I love most churches. I love mine most of the time. Sometimes I am let down and sometimes lifted up until I seem to soar.
Today, after church, I have been reading A.W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God, The Human Thirst for The Divine. On page thirty-six he wrote the best words I think I have ever come across about church and the church. I'll let him tell you what I feel.
"The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God and the Church is famishing for want of his presence. The instant cure of most of our religious ills would be to enter the Presence in spiritual experience, to become suddenly aware that we are in God and God is in us. This would lift us out of our pitiful narrowness and cause our hearts to be enlarged. This would burn away the impurities from our lives as the bugs and fungi were burned away by the fire that dwelt in the bush".

Walk In The Light

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 1John 1:5

Sorry I have been remiss in writing. I was visited this week by my oldest and dearest friend. "Oldest" meaning longest, don't want problems in our friendship over terms! She came to town to play with me in a golf tournament. We had a great time. Lots of golf, food, laughter, talk. We wore ourselves out. That's the good news; I twisted my ankle and fell two days before all this happened, so my golf was pretty stinky. Hard to swing the club when you are anticipating the jolt of pain that will inevitably be visited upon you. Until you hurt your right ankle, you tend to forget how much weight you place on your right side :( Oh well, you always need an excuse when you don't win a tournament.
So today, after I run a couple of really necessary errands, I am going to have some devotional quiet time. First I am going to meditate on 1John 1:1-7. I am not going to beat myself up, however, I am going to look over the past week to see where I slipped out of the light. Either by getting too involve in what was going on around me and forgetting or by letting my frustration make me a little edgy so I was not as "nice" as I could have been.
I love my Creator and want to always keep that first in my sight. But I slip into forgetting so often. I will not dwell on lost opportunities while I go over this today, but I will remind myself how easy it is to slip into the shadows of life's walk. We are human and we lose our light every now and then, but God doesn't. That light shines on us all the time, we just have to step back on to the course.
Shine your light on me today, O Lord, and I will run to get into it.

Golfing

Playing in a golf tournament this week, so I won't be around. Please reread some posts and wait, I'll be back.

Slow Down, Honey

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. Psalm 103:8

Played with the Thursday girls today, first time in 10 days. You should have seen me. I think it was such a beautiful day and I was so happy to be there that I just whipped through every swing. I mean at warp speed. Now if you are new to golf, I need to tell you this is not a good thing :( Your swing should be slow and easy. Just let the club head do the work. I was so fast on my swings I sware Sister Judy said "Slow down, honey". Kinda like "Whoa, Nellie". I finally listened, but I was on a fast roll there for a while.
So when I got home I thought I would get out my Strong's and see how the word "slow" was used in the Bible. Shows up 14 times and 10 of those have to do with anger or wrath. It comes down from a Hebrew root word meaning "long". So I need to take a long time letting my anger build. Maybe I can take so long I forget what I am upset about. Easy to do as my memory is getting shorter and shorter.
I love it when a thought on the golf course leads me to the Bible to look for a word or topic. So, today I found out I need to take a long time letting my back swing build and a long time letting it release for a good shot. I found out I need to take a long time thinking about what I am upset about and maybe I'll take so long to get angry, I won't :)

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

This is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I have my date already for my mammogram. Have you made yours or has your wife? Do it!

Check out http://www.birdiesforbreastcancer.com/. Get involved and bless someone with your care and concern.

Love ya and Birdy on.