I love the song, “As the deer panteth for the water, So my soul longeth after Thee. You alone are my heart’s desire, And I long to worship Thee.” Martin Nystrom wrote these wonderful words based on Psalm 42. Look up the lyrics to the entire song if you haven’t heard them. They mean so much to me because they say what I often feel but can’t express nearly so beautifully. There’s a place in our hearts that needs to be filled with our Lord every day. When we miss our time with him, we struggle needlessly. Lord, I am so thirsty for you. Refresh me daily with your living waters.

Don’t be afraid said Jesus over and over again.  The apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians not to be anxious about anything but to pray (4:6, NKJV). He was no doubt in chains at the time and certainly had reason to be anxious for himself, yet still wrote these words. No matter his circumstances, he always looked to his Savior in prayerful faith and exhorted others to do the same. As for me, when any of my family are in trouble, not to be anxious is well nigh impossible. No, it is absolutely impossible without the faith of Christ himself!

How do you make your decisions about others? Most of us make some kind of judgment about people when we first meet them, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Have you ever thought your judgment might be predicated on how good a day they were having.

When you or I see them in a bad state, we wouldn’t know how hard they struggled against their hard-to-control temper or a terrible addiction. We wouldn’t know how much self-hatred they suffered knowing they had been forgiven by God but had slipped up anyway.

We are all one in what we call this human race. All of us slip up sometimes. Let’s leave the snap judgments behind. Let’s give others the grace, compassion and mercy we all want for ourselves.

“Distracted from distraction by distraction.” If I’m not careful this quote from T.S. Eliot sums up my day. Some refer to this as the Age of Distraction. It’s certainly the age of commercialism where billions of dollars are spent annually to get and capture our attention. Our technological friends, TVs, radios, cellphones, bring these alluring distractions right into our homes. And, not just in our homes, our phones accompany us everywhere. Junk mail, newspapers and magazines compete for our attention as well. Distractions! Distractions! Let’s not let distractions keep us from focusing on what’s most important, our relationship with our God!

On Palm Sunday the disciples were excited. Crowds of people were shouting Jesus’ praises as he rode into Jerusalem. At last their rabbi was being recognized as the true Messiah. They had joined him in hope of just this, honor and glory to Jesus and therefore to his followers—them. Though Jesus had warned them of his impending death, their eyes were blinded and their hearing muted. No wonder Peter didn’t want Jesus to stoop to wash his feet at the Passover meal. That was the work of lowly servants, not the great Messiah. Let’s not be like those clueless disciples, looking for glory and honor when self-sacrifice and servitude are our lot.

How amazing we can read the same scriptures over and over and still see something new. In I Peter 1:2, the Apostle Peter wrote, “who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood” (NIV). How often I have read those words and not focused on “sprinkled with his blood.” As in the Old Covenant when the high priest sprinkled the Israelites with the sacrificial blood of forgiveness, our Savior’s lifeblood was sprinkled, not just on one people, but on the entire human race, forgiveness for all, past, present and future. I’m awestruck by such love!

There she was, in her PJ’s, checking her shopping list on her phone. When I shop at Walmart I like to go early to miss the crowds. That’s when I saw this woman pushing her cart around in her bathrobe and pajamas. I’m not judging. She was a lot more covered up than a lot of women I’ve seen there. Maybe she had unexpected guests for breakfast or some other sound reason for not taking the time to get dressed. She certainly isn’t the type to be inhibited by what other people think of her. Actually, I have a kind of admiration for that young woman out shopping in her fuzzy pink house slippers! I love living in Texas!

My large bookcase is full of informative books. Maybe a few I haven’t read yet, but the great majority I have read at least once, sometimes more than once. But if by looking at that bookcase you think I must be wise after reading all those books, you would be wrong. Even if I could remember everything I have read, a head filled with facts doesn’t make one wise. People much smarter than me, who have read a lot more books, have made some of this world’s most unwise decisions. Knowledge is good but wisdom comes from God. King Solomon, a man whom God offered whatever he wanted, asked not for gold or silver, he asked for wisdom.

How would you describe personal freedom? We live in a country that highly values its freedoms. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights spell out the freedoms established at the dawn of our existence as a republic. We are called the land of freedom. Some believe being a Christian would limit their freedoms in some way, but that’s not true. It’s just the opposite. Being a follower of Jesus, being in him, is unlimited freedom! Freedom in Christ releases us from sin and shame and gives us the creative energy to be the best we can be, whatever our abilities and innate talents may be.

A favorite among many Scripture favorites: “The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17). How amazing to realize how much God loves us humans, especially when we know how unlovable we can be. He doesn’t rebuke us, he rejoices in song over us. Many are the songs with love as their theme, lost love, young love, frustrated love, but none of these songs can compare to the love song God sings for us.