“‘I SHALL NOT WANT,’ the psalm says. Is that true? There are lots of things we go on wanting, go on lacking, whether we believe in God or not. They are not just material things like a new roof or a better paying job, but things like good health, things like happiness for our children, things like being understood and appreciated, like relief from pain, like some measure of inner peace not just for ourselves but for the people we love and for whom we pray. Believers and unbelievers alike we go on wanting plenty our whole lives through. We long for what never seems to come. We pray for what never seems to be clearly given. But when the psalm says ‘I shall not want,’ maybe it is speaking the utter truth anyhow. Maybe it means that if we keep our eyes open, if we keep our hearts and lives open, we will at least never be in want of the one thing we want more than anything else. Maybe it means that whatever else is withheld, the shepherd never withholds himself, and he is what we want more than anything else” (Frederick Buechner).

One takeaway from Kairos tonight is this: whether you are single and long to be married or married and longing to have children (or whatever stage you’re in), God’s provision for you is never a consolation prize.

God often does grant us the desires of our hearts but usually it doesn’t come how or when we expected. Often, when God withholds a request from His child, it’s so that He can give him or her something that’s 100 times better.

Ultimately, God and only God will be enough. Everything else we rest our hopes and dreams on will fall short in the long run.

I’m tired, and it’s still only Monday. That’s bad.

I also woke up this morning with my health and all my fingers and toes intact. That’s good.

There’s always good and bad in everything. It all depends on you as to which one you will focus on the most.

If you dwell on the negative, you will probably find lots more to complain about because that’s what you will see.

If you dwell on the good, then you will find it more and more, because your eyes see what you set your mind on.

If you dwell on God and on things above, that’s the best. Nothing here below can get to you or get you down if you focus on what is eternal. You know everything else that’s bad will soon pass away, but the eternal, i.e. God and His kingdom, will remain forever.

Choose to set your mind on the good. Choose God and His kingdom first. Wait. Isn’t there a verse or something about that?

I had a great idea for a blog post. It was something I heard from the sermon this morning. At the time, I thought to myself, “I don’t need to write any of this down. I’ll remember it later, right?” Not so much.

Hence the random blog post about anything and everything and nothing.

First off, I sweated a lot today. You’d think it was summer or something. When I got home from church service and lunch and the library, my very festive Hawaiian shirt was soaked through with sweat. It was a hot, muggy day. But I did get a great shot of two deer, so it was well worth it.

As I type these words, my little Peanut is snoozing away on the bed. That’s rare. She hardly ever sleeps on my bed. At least not when I’m in my bed. Maybe she’s starting to come around to being more of a snuggly cat like Lucy used to be.

One takeaway from the sermon earlier is that Heaven will be multi-ethnic and multi-lingual and multi-racial. Actually, ethnicity and language and race won’t matter in Heaven. All that will matter in Heaven is Jesus. But what matters here in this life is making our churches more like Heaven will be.

It’s been a very Peanut-y kind of weekend.

By that, I mean I did a lot of nothing. I lounged and ate and lounged and ate some more. That’s pretty much Peanut’s life 24/7 (with the occasional nap and poop thrown in).

It’s good to do nothing sometimes. To not have an agenda or a to-do list and do nothing productive. My Saturday involved a Stranger Things binge, food, and a trip to Goodwill. It wasn’t super eventful or exciting, but it was restful. Sometimes you need that.

Everyone needs to have a cat or dog to fall asleep in their lap at least once in a while. You need the reminder that the world will go on spinning without you, that the universe won’t fall apart if you take a day off.

You and I both need to remember that we’re not in charge of running the world. That job position has already been filled and taken care of admirably. You might even say perfectly.

Let God be God and enjoy a Sabbath day of rest. That’s my advice for you today.

The long wait is over. Stranger Things is back!

My retro-geeky little heart is happy.

I don’t know any specifics or spoilers, but I know that it will most likely be epic, retro, and — wait for it– strange. Hence the name of the show.

I grew up in the 80’s, so every thing about this throwback Netflix series gives me the feels.

Oh, and it’s incredibly written, acted, and produced. That always helps.

I might actually break down and have a New Coke in honor of season 3.

“Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

I’m thankful for a country where I have the freedom to voice my opinions and speak my mind in peace. I’m thankful that freedom of speech applies not only to people who think like me but also to people who don’t.

I’m thankful for that Grand Old Flag. I’m more thankful for what it represents– one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. FOR ALL.

That’s still the goal. Everyone gets liberty and justice. Everyone.

In this country, there’s still such a thing as due process. Everyone is assumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Everyone.

Are the 100% there yet? Not quite. We still have a ways to go before everyone has liberty and justice, but I think we’re still better off than a lot of places where voicing a dissenting opinion can get you permanently silence.

As always, my ultimate allegiance isn’t to a country and a flag and a President. It’s still to a King and a Kingdom that will never end.

“It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it.

Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).

The Bible puts it another way:

“So remember: fear the Eternal and serve Him sincerely and faithfully. Put away from you any gods your ancestors served across the Euphrates River or in Egypt, and serve only Him. If you decide that you’re not willing to serve Him, then today is the day for you to choose whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors bowed to in the land beyond the great River, or the gods of the Amorites whose country you possess. But as for me and my family, we will serve the Eternal” (Joshua 24:14-15, The Voice).

“Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I’d be a slave to my whims.

You know the old saying, ‘First you eat to live, and then you live to eat’? Well, it may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that’s no excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor him with your body!

God honored the Master’s body by raising it from the grave. He’ll treat yours with the same resurrection power. Until that time, remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master’s body. You wouldn’t take the Master’s body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not.

There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, ‘The two become one.’ Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never ‘become one.’ There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for ‘becoming one’ with another. Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body” (1 Corinthians 6:12-20, The Message).

In the age of microwaves and instant fixes, waiting can be difficult. Especially when there’s no clearly defined end in sight.

But sometimes it’s good to love the process. It’s like the saying about when God doesn’t open the next door, praise Him in the hallway.

With God, it’s not about where you are or where you’re going but who you’re becoming. It’s no good to be in the place God wants you to be if you’re not the person He wants you to be. You won’t be able to handle it.

Be patient and learn to love God’s timing as much as you trust in His promises. Both are sure and both are perfect.

Learn to wait well, not sitting idly by with folded hands but preparing yourself in every way to have open hands to receive what God will give you when you’re ready.

Life is a journey. Enjoy the ride. Trust the Guide.

It was two years ago this very day that I got rescued by a little tortie kitten at the Williamson County Animal Shelter. Has it really been that long?

I really didn’t have any specific kind of cat in mind when I went into the shelter that day other than I wanted it to be a kitten.

I probably looked at several, including a few tuxedo cats. They were all fine, but none were exceptionally cuddly or friendly toward me. Nevertheless, I had one picked out and in the carrier. All that was left was for me to sign the papers and it would all be official.

But then I saw this little bitty black paw reaching out toward me. As I drew near her cage, she began to purr loudly. She was saying, “Pick me, human.”

More accurately, she had already picked me to be her “furrever” human and was waiting to see if I had enough sense to realize it.

So I took her home instead.

Thus the adventure started, and I haven’t regretted it for one single second. I chose the name Peanut for her one tan foot that looks like she stepped in a jar of peanut butter.

She’s grown quite a bit since that fateful Friday. Sometimes, I still miss that little kitten who was a champion snuggler. But I really like how Peanut has grown into a beautiful tortoise-shell cat who’s extremely friendly and loves her some belly rubs.