Spring is about new things coming into the world. Today our new furniture arrives for the living room. My grandson, Sevy approved especially when he realized the seats went up with the push of a button.
We have been working on the gardens for weeks now, and they are really starting to come together. Today I pruned back this hydrangea so we could see the hostess.
I pulled up some of these daffodils so that we could plan them in a new space in the fall. Soon the lilies will be in bloom and this garden will be filled with color.
I just added this lupine to bring a bit more Spring color to the garden
This was the last year I was giving this Korean lilac before I pulled it up once and for all. It is flowering beautifully this year.
The irises will probably be out for Memorial Day
Joe and Kristine started filling the raised beds with soil for our vegetables. I put in the squash and the basil today.
THIS WEEK’S QUESTIONS AND MY ANSWERS ARE BELOW BUT YOU CAN CLICK THE LINK ABOVE TO SEE HOW ALL OF THE SUBSCRIBERS ANSWERED.
Do you have a favourite movie you never tire of watching? I really love the Lord of the Rings movies and I think I could watch them over and over if I had the time.
2. Do you have a favourite song or special song as a couple? I love music of all kinds. To name my favourite is really hard. I am a big fan of David Phelps.
I also really like Dimash. Here is a link to his song OLIMPICO.
3. How do you relax in the evenings? Lately I have been relaxing by gardening and spending time in extra prayer.
4.Do you celebrate special birthdays or anniversaries? Our family is what I would call celebrationally challenged. We don’t celebrate most things to the extent I would like to. I am trying to change that.
GRATITUDE: I am grateful for the beautiful weather this week and the lengthening days in which to do extra gardening.
I remember the first time I felt like an adult. I was thirty-five. I was married and had three teen-agers, but it was the first time I actually felt like I had moved from childhood into adulthood. I couldn’t find a rhyme or reason for why my mindset suddenly changed back then. Honestly, until I suddenly felt like an adult I didn’t know I didn’t feel like an adult. For the most part I was acting like and adult. I was paying bills. I owned a house. I was working hard. But not until I was thirty-five did I realize I had the position of an adult… the authority of an adult. It was the first time I felt like I was ready to take on life. The first time I felt like I could take on life and life didn’t just have to happen to me.
Something is changing again. It is just as strange and unexpected this time as it was when I was thirty five. This time I am moving from adulthood into feelings of being an elder.
Maybe it is my mother’s passing, maybe it is that I am entering my fourth year as a lead pastor, maybe it’s that all my grandchildren are now talking and the last of them is potty training, maybe it’s that the children of the children I had in nursery Sunday School are now getting ready to graduate, maybe it’s a lot of things, but I am beginning to feel old. I am feeling these days like an elder.
I guess I am one. There is more snow on the chimney now than soot. I feel it in my bones. I feel it in my energy level. I feel it like a new power in my soul. There is weakness in it…and strength.
I am feeling my age in ways I was told to expect (but refused to accept). I can’t seem to do what I once did as easily as I once did it. I feel weaker, but I also feel a new kind of strength, an assurance, a wisdom, a grace I have not had before that makes me feel that I can do just about anything. I just have to begin learning how to do it differently and maybe a little more slowly.
So how about it? What advice would you give to this new old guy?
Well even here in the frozen North we are finally into the full throes of Spring. The nights are still cool, but the days are getting warmer. The air is now filled with the smell of lilac and lily of the valley which I have in my garden in abundance.
The dandelions and the daffodils have all but gone by.
But the paper whites are now in full bloom. I am getting ready to make my next Spring arrangement for the dining table from some of these and a bit of Japanese Knot Weed.
And the battle against the brush has now begun. I mowed the whole lawn yesterday and my clipper and weed whacker batteries are charging as we speak.
You know its Spring when the festivals begin! My son and daughter-in-law treated me to my first ever Filippino Boodle Fight, a traditional feast and party. The food is served on banana leaves. It is tradition to stand around the table and just pick food off the table and eat as you fellowship, but in honor of their American guests table settings were provided.
My grandson danced all night long. Here he is with his Mom.
This year our church has been given direction from God that we are to fast and pray that we would be prepared. We have been given a congregational sentence that comes through the many prophetic words which have been spoken to us over the last year or so. That sentence says: “Prepare! Prepare! Prepare! Prepare you Spirit (come out of the decay of your strongholds). Prepare your Souls(Prepare to practice and feel compassion). Prepare your facility (your structures, infrastructures and plans). Prepare for the storm (Pray for action plan, Pray for a spirit of perseverance). Prepare your witness (know your gifts, earn the right to speak, build your relationships with those outside the church, build your example). Prepare your hope and faith (think hope, speak hope, act in hope). Prepare your love (love each other, love the people in your towns, love those who disagree with you, love through the doors that open).“
I am breaking these seven prepare statements into 21 weekly devotionals. This is week 16.
Prepare your hope and faith( think hope, speak hope, act in hope).
Hope is not a wish. It is a confident assurance in a certain future. It is big picture thinking. Our hope is not in this present age. Our hope is not in this present kingdom. Our hope is not in this present culture. Our hope is in the sure and certain future Jesus has promised us.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.JOHN 3:16,17
the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.[a]
11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.[b] That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.
14 So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. 15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
17 Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen. 2 PETER 3: 10-18
To think hope means to contemplate the coming of this future kingdom. It means to put away thoughts that get us stuck in this present time of trouble and turmoil.
Notes From the Vicarage 