Vera 2013

When I started following Christ, I devoured Scripture. One of my favourites was Psalm 37:4 – delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Do you know how surprised I was to discover the other less obvious truth about this verse? It’s God who PUTS desires in your heart that He then helps you to fulfill.

I have tried to be satisfied with living a small life. Working at my job. Paying the mortgage and other living expenses (my condo, bought in 2009, was God’s move of faithfulness in honouring Malachi 3:10), participating in church and related ministries, spending some time with family and friends. All wonderful things – but somehow not quite enough.

So this blog has been me, trying to be obedient and responding to a faithful, nurturing Lord. He gave me His Holy Spirit as my resident coach – gentle critic, patient teacher, enthusiastic encourager. That I am making any progress at all is more a sign of the Lord’s faithfulness than of my obedience. I want to be… I try to be… but I am most often like the Apostle Paul when he wrote (paraphrased):

I don’t do what I want to do – and know is right. I do what I don’t want to do and know is wrong. What a mess I am! But thank God Jesus is helping me to become OK.

And so I muster on. Thank you for reading this. I ask one thing of you: love the people God gave you. Love the ones who are hard to like. And turn to Jesus for the answers to every question you have in life. You may not hear what you want to hear, or even find out what you want to know. But if you stick with Him, the journey will be awesome; it will astound and delight you. Only Jesus can turn the worst nightmare into the most beautiful masterpiece – whether it hangs in your house, someone else’s or His, it will be precious and priceless.

John 3:16 and John 14:6