I witnessed another glorious sunset on the beach this evening.

While there’s no such thing as a bad sunset, there’s something special about seeing the sun sink into the ocean at close of day. It really doesn’t get any better than that.

I’m hoping that I can catch a beach sunrise (provided I can get my lazy butt out of bed in time).

More than that, I want to have my eyes open to more of the minute miraculous in my life. I don’t want to be so buried in my phone that I miss my life. I don’t want to be so consumed by past worries or future possibilities that I miss there here and now. There’s so much to see.

I want to be thankful for every moment I have left. The anniversary of 9/11 reminds me yet again of how precious and fleeting life is. 3,000 people went to bed on the previous night having no notion that it would be their last on this earth.

So here’s to more sunsets, sunrises, and eyes wide open. May none of us ever miss a moment of it. 

It almost seems surreal that I’m back in Panama City roughly 20 after the last time I was here with the Central Church college and career group. I even passed by the very Edgewater Beach Resort where I stayed way back in the day.

I love feeling sand between my toes again. I love the scent of salty ocean air, even if it feels like it’s coming out of a hot air vent. I still think sunsets on a beach are the best.

It’s hard to remember back to the late 90’s and who I was then. So much has changed around me and in me. I’m definitely not the same person I was then.

I’m looking forward to making new memories and enjoying my time away from the craziness of normal life. I hope to hear from God in these next few days.

Did I mention how much I love the ocean?

“…and it’s true — that sometimes…
the thing you never would choose for your life, chooses you for a reason.
And the thing that you’d never pick? Picks you to become brave.
And sometimes…
you get what you need — by walking through what you never wanted – 
and the thing you never wanted, may turn out to be be the thing you need most.
I hadn’t known but now believe: the thing that may make you fall a bit apart, may be part of what one day holds you a bit together” (Ann Voskamp).

I drove by my old office building today. It was the place where I was downsized from my job over 6 years ago.

At the time, it felt like it came out of nowhere. I didn’t have a clue when they called my name in the middle of the day that I was being let go. I had no idea that a lot of other people would lose their jobs that day.

As odd as it seems, I felt a complete calm about the whole thing. I knew that wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I also knew that had I not been laid off, I would have stayed there much longer because it was a safe, non-risky place. And I would have been miserable.

The next three years before I found my next full-time job were full of the usual ups and downs and highs and lows. I had quite the variety of temp job experiences and almost got hired a couple of times.

I see now looking back that God used what I didn’t think I wanted to get me to a better place physically, spiritually, and mentally. It’s still a work in progress, but it never would have begun if not for May 22, 2012.

I’m thankful for that day because that’s where God began showing up big time in my life and He hasn’t stopped.

I’m going on holiday. I like that version better than saying that I’m going on a vacation. Just another reason being British is better.

But I’m on the cusp of starting my vacation/holiday. I love that feeling. It’s the feeling that I don’t have to wake up early in the morning and make that commute to work. I get to sleep in and dream.

For the longest time, I couldn’t really grasp heaven. For some reason, none of the images I could conjure up really did anything for me. Until I read the last book in The Chronicles of Narnia series, The Last Battle. In it, C. S. Lewis describes the feeling of heaven as waking up after the last day of school and the beginning of summer holiday.

I remember that feeling. How all sorts of endless possibilities lay before me. How absolutely ecstatic I was when the reality sank in.

I’m not planning on going to heaven tomorrow. I’m planning on enjoying my week of vacation. But I know one day I will have that feeling of joy and it will never go away or grow less. That makes me smile.

That’s all, folks.

“The water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.’ –John 4:14

“We are to be fountains through which Jesus can flow as ‘rivers of living water’ in blessing to everyone. Yet some of us are like the Dead Sea, always receiving but never giving. Whenever the blessings are not being poured out in the same measure they are received, there is a defect in our relationship with Him. Stay at the Source, closely guarding your faith in Jesus Christ and your relationship to Him, and there will be a steady flow into the lives of others with no dryness or deadness whatsoever” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest).

Which one are you? Which one am I?

Are we like the Dead Sea, always taking and never giving or pouring life into others?

Or are we like rivers of living water, refreshing all who come into contact with us?

It’s a daily choice.

We don’t decide one day and auto default to whatever we want. We have to make the same choice tomorrow and the next day and the day after.

It’s a daily choice.

That means if I was a Dead Sea yesterday, hoarding blessings and being miserly with God’s grace, I don’t have to be that way to day. I can be a river of living water.

Which one will you and I choose to be?

I think I want to be as content as my cat Peanut (pictured above).

Some days, I’d like to have her little feline life and spend the whole day napping and eating and occassionally having a manic race through the house.

She has few concerns to worry her little mind. She knows her every need will be met and her people will look after her and take care of her.

She doesn’t live in the past or the future. She’s strictly in the present. That’s all she knows. She doesn’t fret over yesterday or fear tomorrow. She’s fully living in the moment.

Maybe I’d be less anxious and more content if I did the same.

“Offering intercessory prayer means nothing other than Christians bringing one another into the presence of God, seeing each other under the cross of Jesus as poor human beings and sinners in need of grace. Then, everything about other people that repels me falls away. Then I see them in all their need, hardship, and distress. Their need and their sin become so heavy and oppressive to me that I feel as if they were my own, and I can do nothing else but bid: Lord, you yourself, you alone, deal with them according to your firmness and your goodness” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

What a beautiful picture of what it means to intercede in prayer on another’s behalf.

I confess I’m not really good at praying for people. I’m really good at telling people I’ll pray for them but sucky when it comes to the actual praying.

It’s not that I don’t have good intentions. It’s more like I have spiritual ADHD. I get distracted. I forget. My mind wanders and I chase shiny objects.

But there’s nothing more powerful in my mind than when a believer intercedes in faith for another. Nothing moves the heart of God more than that.

Who has God laid on your heart to intercede on their behalf?

Maybe it’s time that you and I stop telling people we’re praying for them and actually pray for them.

What is God doing in your life in an area where it feels like you are completely falling apart and coming undone?

It may seem hopeless beyond repair, but God knows that if a seed remains intact, it remains a single solitary seed. If that same seed falls apart and dies, it reproduces into many many seeds of new life.

The process is painful and seemingly never-ending, but the end result is always growth. All that you need is patience and trust.

I’ve been making my way through Streams in the Desert, a daily devotional that is probably in my top five favorites of all time.

It’s definitely not a “your best life now” kind of book. It’s not about how if you have enough faith, God will grant your every whim and desire and take away every hint of sadness and suffering in your life.

It’s about how God uses suffering in your life to increase your dependence on Him, to make you strong enough to fulfill His purposes for you, and to grow you into maturity and Christlikeness.

This devotional makes most of the current Christian writing look like Christianity Lite, heavy on the feel-good but light on actual theology and truth. This one does have its moments of comfort, but also there are plenty of convicting passages as well. It’s not for the faint of heart.

I think in 2020 I will revisit The Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan Prayers. Those people definitely knew how to pray. I haven’t been through that gem of a book in a while. I think I need a little more old school in my life