Hope For Today

Dear Friends, I've been meditating this week on one particular verse which has both encouraged and challenged me. King David had it in his heart to build a temple for God. However, God told him that this was not for him to do, but his son, Solomon would be the one to build it instead. David spent time preparing and planning for the temple. In 1 Chronicles 28:20 he says this to Solomon: “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Don’t be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. He will see to it that all the work related to the Temple of the Lord is finished correctly." (NLT) David was Solomon's encourager. He wasn't bitter that someone else was getting to do what he had dreamed of. Instead he demonstrated his support of Solomon. 1. Be strong and courageous  This was not so much about physical strength, but rather about staying power, persevering, not giving up. I wonder if Solomon felt...

Dear Friends, Many of our fears, when expressed aloud, can seem irrational.  Those who know me well know my fear of spiders.  Why would anyone be afraid of these small creatures?  I can't even really explain it myself.  I can cope fairly well with the smaller ones, but the larger ones with big bodies just send a shudder through me and my heart pounds, and usually it takes a cry out to Jason to come and deal with it before I can begin to calm down and relax. One September as I lay sleeping in bed I felt something tickling me on my shoulder, being only half awake, and not knowing what it was, I just brushed it off with my hand.  (By the way, in case you were wondering, it was a big spider.) It landed on Jason's chest, which woke him up, he grabbed it and flung it away from him where it hit the wall with a soft thud!  Sad to say, (for me anyway) it crawled off somewhere and we never found it.  I struggled to return to sleep, believing that it might fi...

Dear Friends, I came across The Story of a Cracked Pot a few weeks back and it greatly encouraged me.   Have a read: “A waterbearer in India had two large pots, one hung on each end of a pole, which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it. While the other pot was perfect, and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the mistress's house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. Powered b For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to her master's house. The perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect to the end for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream: "I am ashamed...