Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you're on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute!
Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.
Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies. - Philippians 4:4-9 The Messsage
I really do love how The Message restates this passage. Oh, how my days would be different if I really allowed Christ to displace all the worry in my life. This is one of the other if…then passages in the Bible. To it I cling. Its promises I have claimed on many days when nothing on Earth was worth hanging onto, even the breath in my lungs contaminated.
May this passage be a blessing to you. I hope and pray that you will hang on to its promises and ask God to keep His Word in a way that is so clear to you, you don’t question to Whom the credit is due!
As a woman dealing with a life of alcoholism once shared, “if you think God won’t follow you around, you just watch Him.” Though these two thoughts don’t seem very attached, I believe they are. One of the noble, compelling things to think of is that God loves us so much He chases us, even wooing us. He cries out for intimacy with us. He calls us to pull our brains out of the muck, breathe deeply of the Holy, and connect with Him. Go ahead and “thank” on that for a while!
I appreciate your willingness to allow me into your brain this week. May you have been blessed by the amount of God that shined through my rambling, and sometimes poorly grammared words.
Blessings,
Shiann
