Be kind to yourself…..the Lord not only calls us to be kind to our neighbor, but also to ourselves. Think about it: if you had a friend who spoke to you the same way you speak to yourself, how long would you allow that person to be your friend? So many of us are very unkind to ourselves…..we condemn ourselves in the mirror with demeaning names which no one hears but us. God doesn’t talk to you that way, so, why do you? Maybe some of us have an attitude that says, “if i were God, i wouldn’t like me either”….but that’s not what the Lord does….He is kind and His kindness changes us.

Jesus is the completion of redemption, and the balance of reconciliation, He has been speaking to you before you knew it was Him speaking to you. He is the One who gives us images to familiarize us with Himself. He is God who whispers us to sleep when we are restless, then rustles His God-fingers against the earth until it rains love in our lives, making wet parched hearts to sing again, even in the moments when we would have preferred to stop living.

i got a phrase of this from somewhere, don’t know where, i just jotted down the rhyming rhythm on a slip of paper.

Even in all our mundane ways, we shall know God. His whispers invite us in closer to Him, hearing with greater exactness, to not be satisfied sitting at a distance from Him….He whispers, words low to the ground which are our resolution to key decisions, little words which nudge our rescue from dark nights of the soul, promptings which inspire us to grow up…..they echo down the long hall between the shadow of conflict and peace, uncovering and healing our disgraces which are felt but rarely expressed.

Both “joy” and “happy” have a fire in them. Happy is a blessedness in our head, meaning it is a subjective word. Happy has to do with intent and posture, and depends on external circumstances.
“Joy” also has a flame, but it’s a word of internal life and grace, divine breath, and light. It is an internal blessedness which rises from our insides. Nehemiah 8:10, “…joy of the Lord”.

When arrogance and pride step in the room, it’s like saying someone armed and willing to draw blood is in our company. Withing the main Hebrew word for pride is that it comes to the table weaponized and willing to get gain by struggle. Pride says, “Play fair!”, God says, “Don’t play fair, do more than fair.”

10.22.2015. To be aged and elderly, from God’s perspective, paints a picture of someone who is nearing their vanishing point. “Old” as a Hebrew verb, denotes a state or condition. The word for “old age”, in the scripture of first mention being Gen21:2, referrs to Sarah. Into God’s description of “old age” is built time and a crown, honor and faithfulness. The letters of the word imply, as a man or woman of God in our “old age”, time and quality become evident upon us as we are approaching our final form…the truth of God is concealed in our heart, which is why i say that the idea of getting old, literally means “one approaching their vanishing point”…..As we age our “waters are closed up” so to speak, our joints don’t work like they used to, our eyes and ears aren’t as sharp, our endurance to run with the big dogs has faded, and neither do we recover as quickly as we used to. Our prospects of marriage and having more children come to a close. But God has given those of us who are elderly a value as wise advisers, which is truly an invaluable resource in today’s economy which seems to employ such little wisdom. If wisdom is better than gold, then our Godly seniors are truly in their golden years.

Within the Hebrew spelling of purity, twice there occurs the idea of choice: the choice to be free or not, the choice to return or not, the choice between greatness and degradation. In the same spelling there is guaranteed redemption for anyone who wants to return and enter the courts of God as a heroic penitent.