Trusting in the Lord up in the Country

     We’re going to be just fine!  Today (Monday, March 10^th) was just a sampling of the day ahead; beautiful weather, loving family, faithful friends, a great and awesome God, and a Christian life lived one day at a time.  Returning from the Preachers’ Meeting this afternoon I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few items that we needed.  I bought a bag of oranges.  As soon as I walked through the door at home I picked the perfect one from the bag, peeled it, and ate it one slice at a time, savoring each bite as if it were the very first and last orange in the world.  Oranges are precious to me for a reason.  Every single time my Grandmother, Tennie Burleson ate an orange  she would tell anyone who would listen about waking up on Christmas morning to check her stocking for a gift and find an orange and an apple in the stocking.  Her face said it all.  Now when I eat an orange I think of my granny as a little girl with wide  sparkling eyes holding that Christmas orange, breathing it in, slowing peeling back the cover and placing a piece on her tongue, closing her eyes and feeling, tasting, savoring the slice as it burst in her mouth.  Delicious!  We are so very blessed!  I have a whole bag on my kitchen counter and I plan on sharing and enjoying every one of them.

     We have much to pray about this week.  Many of our Christian family members are sick up in the country.  I have a adjusted my morning routine to include more time for prayer:  prayer for my mom and dad in Alabama, my sister and brothers, and for mine and my wife’s family members, prayer for our elders and deacons and their families, prayer for those who are fighting disease and those who are fighting beside them, prayer for our youth, prayer for those who are older, prayer for the church of Christ locally, statewide, nationwide, and worldwide, especially the congregations I have worked and worshipped with in my years of ministry, prayer for our governing authorities, federal, state, and local, prayer for my friends, prayer for my enemies, prayer for those who are hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, stranger, or imprisoned, prayer to say “Lord, help us” and prayer to say “Thank you, Lord” and prayer to say “I’m sorry, Lord” and prayer to say “Lord, come quickly.”  I could go on and on and sometimes I actually do go on and on just like Paul wrote to the church of Christ at Thessalonica when he wrote, “Pray without ceasing.”  How about you?  Can you adjust your morning or evening or midday routine to include more time for prayer?  I hope you will.  I need it.  You need it.  The world needs it.  We all need it.

     Our Sunday morning series in entitled “Where is the Love.”  We have looked at the myths of love and decided to believe and accept only the facts and realities, not the myths.  God shows us His love every day in ways that we can see.  We, too much show Him our love in ways that He can see.  We must open our hearts up to God.  This past Sunday we looked at lesson number three in this series and decided to renew our commitments to God, to others, and to ourselves, the commitment we made when we confessed Jesus as the Son of God and put Him on in baptism.  Our final lesson necessarily follows.  We must now love as Jesus loves.

     Our Sunday evening series is “Expecting the Impossible.”  We must not expect growth without diligence.  We must not expect diligence without love.  This Sunday evening we will see that we must not expect love without the knowledge of God and His salvation.  The Holy Spirit through John said, “He who does not love, does not know God because God is love.”  Let us live with positive expectation.  I want to grow, so diligence is required.  I want to work for God and for good, so love is required.  I want to love as Jesus loves, so I want God at the center of my life.  How about you?  The apostle Paul said, Imitate me as I imitate Christ.”

     I hope to see you up in the country for Bible study, worship, and Christian fellowship.