too busy? guilty.

One reason we are so harried and hurried is that we make yesterday and tomorrow our business, when all that legitimately concerns us is today. If we really have too much to do, there are some items on the agenda which God did not put there. Let us submit the list to Him and ask Him to indicate which items we must delete. There is always time to do the will of God. If we are too busy to do that, we are too busy. ~Elisabeth Elliot

Baby Girl's Dedication to the Lord

While we were at our meeting/ retreat our friends from Orlando had a time to spend together lifting our children up to the Lord.

It really was a sweet time

Baby Girl like to see everybody... and she was not disappointed during her baby dedication!

She was so happy! 

Talking, singing, laughing & dancing... in front of our entire cluster!

Brad read from Deuteronomy 6 as a prayer for us & our family 

as we work to raise our Baby Girl up in a way that she should go.

Our sweet friends praying over us & BG.

We are so very thankful for them & community we have around us to encourage us

pour into us as we raise up our sweet Baby Girl.

Deuteronomy 6:5-9

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

My Keeper

Ps 121

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD
who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber or sleep.

The LORD is your keeper;
the LORD is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.

The LORD will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The LORD will keep 
your going out & your coming in
from this time fourth and forevermore.

*I added the underlining for emphasis.
Why would I add these?  Mainly because they keep standing out to me... in HUGE ways.

First.  LORD.
In these 8 verses used... 5x.  Note, this is not the Lord.  The common use word.  The word that some modern translations & teachers use instead.  Why?  I don't know.  But this word LORD is bigger than the all caps allow.  This is Yahweh.  The holy term for our Lord.  This is the word when ancient writers would come to it they would fully purify themselves before writing it, then and only then continue writing.  Thats right, in this chapter alone they would of stopped all they were doing five times to purity themselves just to even write His name.

He is the LORD of Lords.  We are not talking about the gods of men or the lords of the earth.  We are talking about the Creator.  The One who spoke our planet & life into existence. The Great I AM.  The Father, Son & Holy Ghost combo.  He is unimaginably bigger & more amazing than we can begin to fathom and more.  This is Him.  He is my helper, my keeper, the shade, the keeper of me from evil & the keeper of my life.  He is my LORD.

Second.  keep, keeps, keeper.
Base word used 6 times in only 8 verses.  I think He is trying to tell me something :)

The ESV study Bible says that this term in Hebrew - shamar - is to keep, guard, watch over, & to attend to carefully.

While trusty ol' Webster's says - 1. have or retain possession of, retain or reserve for use in the future, put or store in a regular place, retain one's place in or on (a seat or saddle, the ground, etc.) against opposition or difficulty, delay or detain.  2. continue or cause to continue in a specified condition, position, course, continue doing or do repeatedly or habitually, remain in good condition, or make (someone) do something for a period of time.... and the list continues.  But these where the first uses listed for keep.

The LORD keeps us.  In context, he was keeping Israel as the sojourned to Jerusalem.  For most a long, tough, & possibly scary trip.  But since the Word is alive it still definitely speak to me now.  Exactly in this moment.  

Brad is currently driving from our BigCity to our town where we live.  On a good day you can make it in 3 hours.  On the trip you go over 70 speed bumps.  70.  Seriously.  Through multiple villages.  Have to pass/ dodge cows & other animal life which wonder & our guided into the roads.  There are almost always children playing on the roadside, b/c it is so nice & flat.  Ha.  Not to mention the traffic... which here the most dangerous vehicle  on the road = the bus.  Seriously, they drive faster & harder then anything else and truly have no fear.  They are the biggest, most full of people, and the scariest.  BUT through all of this, i know & can rest in the fact that the LORD is keeping Brad in this aspect of his going out & coming in/ home.

But then more than this, through everything I have been through HE has kept me.  Yes.  Kept, as in past tense.  And I know that the Maker of Heaven & Earth will keep me in the future.  Through hard times, surrounded my evil, all the going out & coming in that we do in our line of work.  He has & will.  Because, He is my LORD.

Silver & Gold

Ps 135:15-18

The idols of the nations are silver & gold,

the work of human hands.

They have mouths, but do not speak;

they have eyes, but do not see;

they have ears, but do not hear;

nor is there any breath in their mouths.

Those who make them will become like them,

so do all who trust in them!

Please pray for those who put their faith here.

Pray for a deep desire for more than what is made by our hands.

Pray for those who follow these lies to hear & see TRUTH.

Pray for the nations who are following locked away stone gods.

Ps 135:5

For I know that the LORD is great,

and that our Lord is above all gods.