TREASURE TROVE

This Week's Random Thoughts

Pause & Consider

CARE, ANYWAY
Why not have a little generosity of heart toward those who see life through a different lens? We never know what opportunities lie ahead, where community will bring us together. Hatred divides. Love sees life as an opportunity. We need not compromise our beliefs to care about others.

FAITH
A nurtured faith is a steadfast faith. Like an anchor, it holds fast even when circumstances do not. To nurture faith, trust in God must increase and expand. Time with God in prayer and in the Word are required. This takes intentional choice along with determined effort. Then faith becomes strong.

PRAY WITH POWER
Little prayer, little power, little happens.
Much prayer, much power, much happens, that is, the fervent, real, heart-felt prayers of a spiritual person. True spiritual living rests on the character and depth of one's prayers, and the character and depth of one's walk with God.

CONNECTED
Engagement with God initiates a process through which people change their perceptions. A work of God in a life open to His ministrations, facilitates structural change in those places that are repositories of soul woundings and soul hiding. This results in a spiritual awakening.

HERE'S WHY
Figuratively speaking, when you come to bumps in a road, unexpected detours, or difficult obstacles, instead of avoiding or disparaging them. After the dust settles, you can look at them and say, what did I learn from this? Troubles become a teacher. We can learn a lot this way.

AMAZING
I hadn't seen this friend in decades. He was the conference speaker. He spoke of lives transformed and deeper prayer. I marveled at him now, a man with a heart for God. He, also, is transformed. We talked over lunch. Life has tempered both of us. A sweetness connected our understandings.

AS SOMEONE TO LOVE
When you're nervous about talking to someone or making that phone call, see the other person as someone to love.

BE BLESSED
I wish I had something witty to say--
  That I could roll out for you today,
But since I do not
   So much for the thought--
I'll just say, "Have a good day" instead.

AMEN
God's mercies are new every morning. His judgments are pure and righteous altogether. His love reaches to the highest mountain and to the lowest depth. God's grace is sufficient for you and for me. Holy is His name. Praise be to God.

** This post is a compilation of my Tweets on Twitter.

Grace Giver -- Inspiration 10

Grace Gives Grace

Image from the recent Northern California Camp Fire 

-Beauty from Ashes-

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

2 Corinthians 12:19

O LOVING GRACE, beautiful grace, bountiful grace. What would the world do without grace? When grace is given it is received but not necessarily deserved. A prodigal son receives grace when he is welcomed home. Sinners are given grace when their sins are forgiven them. A recipient of an act of grace, do welcome it. Grace plays out in a myriad of ways. They could have gotten in trouble but they didn't, they've been given a second chance after a mess-up,  they are forgiven a wrong, or when they are loved just because. That's grace giving from out of its nature, extending grace because that is what grace does. Helping someone who is hard to help, like a person suffering with Alzheimer's Disease, is on the grace side of giving. God's grace is even greater. His grace chooses to redeem rather than punish, to set free rather than encage, to give to rather than to break down. Grace is greater than all our sin. We repent. God forgives. Grace pardons the offense. Grace covers with His feathers. Frequently grace carries an individual through a difficulty. They are given grace when they could have lost their job, a friendship, a relationship, or their reputation. Grace says they are worth it. They were worth a Son to Him. That's a hard understanding. Ultimate grace becomes human reality from its Giver of the divine Gift. Grace grows and blesses as God's grace multiplies in the interior self.

Dear Father in Heaven, spiritual life has many benefits and grace is one of them. You give grace to the humble, You give grace to us, You show us the ways of grace. Thank you for Your grace that welcomes us as part of Your family. Amen

To God be the Glory