2 Days for the Price of One

I never got around to posting my Joy Dare for Friday.  It was a busy day, but I also had some trouble with thinking of my answer.  The prompt was "3 Gifts Harvest."  Here are my musings...

- Memories: Through 16+ years of marriage and 11+ years of mothering, I have gathered a bountiful harvest of memories.  Some are sad, some are dark, many are happy, or funny, or tender.  All of them, from one end of the spectrum to the other, are precious and make up the relationships I have with my family.

- Garden:  The garden is done for the year.  I need to pull out the tomato cages and let one of our farming friends come mow it over and turn over the ground.  I usually look at that time and I'm saddened.  I think about the second-rate tomatoes that I'll have to buy from the store.  I scold myself for not doing a better job of weeding or tending this past season.  This year, I'm choosing to look at the clearing of the dead plants as the beginning of next year's harvest.

- Souls:  Jesus said, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."  All too often, I despair over the state of our country and world.  I worry that so many are lost and that there is nothing I can hope to do about it.  But that's looking at the situation through sin-colored human glasses.  God sees a harvest, ripe for the picking. 


Saturday's prompt is "3 Gifts Bible Reading"

- If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy going or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. - 1 Corinthians 1:1-3  (This is becoming my plumb line for all I say and do.  If my actions are not rooted in love, then I need to rethink what I'm doing.)

- The story of Cornelius from Acts 10.  I've always liked this story because it is the moment when Peter and then the rest of the church realized that gentiles were invited to the party as well.  Today, when we were listening to it, I realized something else.  Cornelius was noticed by God because of his prayers and alms.  He was doing the "right" things and probably living a pretty good "Christian-style" life.  But God knew that it was best for him to be part of a body of believers.  He told Cornelius to send for Peter and then urged Peter to go to him.  He made sure that Cornelius and the gentiles were not on their own in the Christian walk.  Having a body of believers around you in vital even today.

- For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. - Hebrews 4:12  (His Word is just as real and true and important today as when it was written.)

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing,

give thanks in all circumstances;

for this is the will of God

in Christ Jesus for you.