It's in there...

Our Daily Bread
There was an advertisement for pasta sauce that focused on the ingredients that Momma used to put in her pasta sauce.  They would read the ingredients and finish with "It's in there!"

I thought about this commercial when reading the devotional this morning.  When folks look at our "ingredients" do they see the fruits of the Spirit --  Love, joy, longsuffering, peace, gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance, faith.  My prayer is that when someone looks at the ingredients of our lives, they will exclaim "It's in there!"  Praise God!

Lord, we know you are with us always.  Please help us show outwardly the ingredients you added to our lives!

Simply Saturday
It all fits together
It never ceases to amaze me how things just fit together when you are following God to the best of your abilities.  For a man like me that has so much pride, selfishness and arrogance, the length of those periods only lasts thirty seconds or so!  Yikes!  I pray that each of us can put aside ourselves so we can let Christ fill us with his love, mercy and justice.  "Little Christs" is the term that CS Lewis uses.

I have been praying about some things, trying to be patient for the answers.  I don't know about you, but I don't always accept "no" or "not yet" from our Heavenly Father very gracefully!  DOH!  I forget about how it all fits together when I wait on him.  I forget how it all fits together when I stop making things happen on my own.  I forget about all the times that He strengthened me and delivered me.  How about you?  All I have to do is read my medical history sheet that I keep for my many doctors.  Whew...

I challenge each of us to write up a short personal history of the times that God strengthened and delivered us.  You can use the psalms or stories in the Old Testament as a guide as many of these books pass down the oral traditions of the deliverance history of Israel.  It is so amazing to read this history, especially during the holidays, a time of thanksgiving.

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“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (Prov. 3:5-6).