Skip to main content

A Morning View By the Wood Stove

Sometimes at night I just hurt. No matter what I do there is a nagging pain. I go to a chiropractor for some relief and occasionally I am able to get a massage which helps best. I take natural remedies, I take over the counter pain medicine and sometimes it helps and sometimes it does not. I have one constant spot in my right shoulder which is the main source of pain. Nagging pain wears on me.

Sometimes my head and heart just hurt. No matter what I do the nagging sins and failures of the past show up and remind me of my past. I fill time with other thoughts and strive to avoid the temptations of the sin. I read the scripture and ask God to take it away, but the reminders are there. I do not need to live in the pain of the past, but often I choose pain. 

Yes, it is easy to choose pain. Why? Why do we choose pain? When our lives are surrendered to Jesus Christ, we do not need to live in the pain and sin of our past. Yet often, we do. Our pain and sin have been defeated, yet often we choose to not let them die. Our sins have been forgiven so we just need to let the be gone.

As we head to Christmas this week, the Baby Jesus has redeemed us. If we do not celebrate our forgiveness in Jesus Christ then we falsely celebrate the birth of the Savior. 

We do not need to live in the pain of the past when we can celebrate the reason the Baby was born. Jesus Christ is our Redeemer.

“I love you, Lord;

    you are my strength.

The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior;

    my God is my rock, in whom I find protection.

He is my shield, the power that saves me,

    and my place of safety.

I called on the Lord, who is worthy of praise,

    and he saved me from my enemies.” - Psalm 18:1-3


Peace,

PB

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Morning View By the Wood Stove

If you proclaim Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then I must ask you a question. Are you seeking the deepest possible intimate relationship with God that you can ever experience on this earth? Because I know what I am about to say to be absolutely true. If you are not and if you are pursuing anything other than God you will not ever be satisfied and ultimately any other relationship will fail. It does not matter how deeply connected with another person you are without God it will fail. Failure may not mean completely walk away, failure can mean that a relationship will not be what it is intended to be and you settle for it because at least it is there, it's the best I can do, it could be worse and for many other reasons.  We are created to be in relationship with one another. We have many relationships and many depths within those relationships. We have social relationships. We have relationship with many forms of addiction and substitution. We have friends and we have FRIENDS...

A Morning View Near the Patio

I believe Christians are called to live a different life in the world than those who are not Christian. I believe that no matter the circumstance of the world, the government and all the just and injustice we are called to be different. Jesus handled the Easter journey much differently than I believe the modern Christian in the USA would have handled it. The Apostle Paul lived as best he humanly could to model the path and life of Jesus Christ during the difficult times of persecution and injustice of his journey. A lot of thoughts are swirling in my head during our difficult time we are currently experiencing and all of those thoughts come back to my life as a Christian, believer and follower of Jesus Christ, and do my thoughts, actions and words model Jesus on the Easter journey to the cross? In Matthew 16:24-26 Jesus told his disciples to "take up their cross and follow me!" I am believing that Jesus is telling us to live like, act like, be like and love like Jesus did....

A Morning View Near the Patio

Sabbath - to rest from labor, set aside as holy. Because we have less to do in our current situation, perhaps as Christians we can redefine what Sabbath looks like for us. I wonder how many of us traditionally go to church in our weekend routine, have lunch then get right back at it? After all, we have so much to do and so little time. It has been nice to sit and be. On the nicer days, when the weather cooperates, it has been so nice to sit on the patio and just be. I have sat and contemplated there more this year than I did all last summer. Perhaps a new normal of Sabbath can take place in our lives. As a child I remember going to church on Sunday morning and on the way home being dropped off at Grandma and Granddad's place. We would have lunch and quite often go for a ride. Usually the ride would end somewhere with ice cream! The routes must have been develops around the ice cream establishments in Northeast Ohio! We did very little, but for me as a kid we did a lot. I remember...