Soul Sister Time

                It’s easier to notice your lack of patience.   It isn’t as obvious for me to notice when my soul is so connected to Christ that it has been transformed to a place of supernatural patience resulting from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.   On those rare occasions that I feel that way, I know I am experiencing holy patience.   I wish I could say that I live in a constant state of holy patience.   I’m glad to have the experience of this intimacy with God that brings out something from me that is better than I am.                 It makes me wonder about my lack of holy patience and why it is still apparent in my life even after I know what it is like to experience what God gives me.   I surprise myself by how cranky I can get about a driver who pushes his way in front of me or a long line at the grocery store.   I wonder why I still let myself get to that state when I know how peaceful and wonderful it is to experience the broken realities of this world with the as

            The disciples are not the only ones who ask questions of God.   It’s not the questions we ask of God that get us in trouble.   It’s when we think we already know the answer so we don’t ask the question, or when we answer the question from our human reasoning, that we hinder our own souls.             This is what happened in John 9 regarding a man who was born blind.   It seemed obvious to wonder whose sin caused the son to be born blind—the man or the parents. To a first century Jewish mind, the fact that a baby was born blind was a sign of God’s punishment for sin.   Jesus offers a divine explanation for the man’s blindness.   He answered: I t was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.   We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.   As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world (John 9:3-5).               The disciples had it all wrong.   It

            One day can change everything about your life.   I know that full well.   The first time this happened to me, it was a happy day.   It was the day that my daughter Rachel caught me by surprise by showing up three weeks early.   It had been my day off from work and it was perfect timing because I had just cleaned the house and Brian had mowed the lawn.   We went out for our nightly walk at the end of a long day and I started feeling funny.   No one would believe me when I was sure I was in labor, but I insisted that he take me to the hospital anyway.   That was a day I did not expect even though I knew it was coming.   If you could have seen me then, you too would know to expect that a baby would be entering the world soon.   I really was very great with child.   We all knew it would happen; we were all surprised that it happened on the day that it happened.   That experience floods through my mind and helps me connect to the thought Paul expressed in Acts 17:31, Beca

  From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, We are his offspring ( Acts 17:26-28).   (Underlined are quotes from philosophers.) God has been unpacking so many truths from this scripture that I would never be able to share all that I have been learning in a weekly devotion.   This part of Paul’s sermon to the philosopher’s in Athens was brilliant.   He was able to quote some of the famous thinkers of the day and explain how they were touching on the reality of God’s love for them.   You will see here that all the nations are vitally important to God.   Never far from His heart are the nations that completely ignore who He is.   He is constantly