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Brighter Days Ahead

It’s Coming Together

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It's Coming Together
Feeling puzzled? Don’t worry, it’s coming together…

My mom likes to put challenging 1,000 piece puzzles together.  When she dumps a box out I can’t help but think it will never come together; it’s just a jumbled mess that doesn’t look like anything promising.  And yet each time I check in, it’s coming together.  She had one with old-fashioned Christmas ornaments all hanging on blue beads.  Another one was a solid picture of sprinkled and frosted doughnuts which, quite honestly, just made me hungry.  A recent puzzle was shelves of books and their many titles.   With patience, little by little, a picture begins to form.   It doesn’t happen overnight and mom has to keep working at it, but each time the final picture eventually comes together.

Trust the Timing

Unfortunately, sometimes life can be a complicated puzzle.  It just seems like a bunch of events that produce nothing but problems and chaos.  But take heart, God is working in your life right now to bring it all together.  From Ecclesiastes 3:11, “He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”   God had you on His radar for a long time.  Psalm 139:16-17, “You saw me before I was born.  Every day of my life was recorded in your book.  Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.  How precious are your thoughts about me God!  They cannot be numbered!”  Grab ahold of this thought-you are always on God’s mind.  He’s looking at all the seemingly impossible parts of your life and He’s fitting them together to create something beautiful.  So stay steadfast and keep watching, because you can be sure, it’s coming together.

Things to do today:

  1. Trust in God’s perfect timing.
  2. Read a similar blog called ‘Timing is Everything’ and listen to the song, ‘Glorious Unfolding.’
Brighter Days Ahead

Become Overwhelmed

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Become overcome by sunrise over beach.
Become overcome by sunrise over beach.

If I think too much about what’s in the news, I could become overwhelmed.  It’s filled with stories of violence, hatred, and fear.  We are inundated with a sense of hopelessness and problems too big to turn around.  The radio speaks of crime, corruption, and the threat of war.  Yet when I look out my window, I see neighbors mowing the lawn of the elderly.  I pass a friend helping to catch a puppy who has decided to play in the middle of the street.  My Facebook feed shows friends at the county fair, beautiful smiling babies, and the (sometimes) excited faces of kids’ first day of school.  It’s two sides of a coin really.  We can become overwhelmed with negativity, or we can become overwhelmed with hope.

God wants to overwhelm us with hope.  “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”  (Jeremiah 29:11 NLT)  We see his plans all around us.  It’s in the life of a young missionary who boarded a plane for Nepal immediately after the earthquakes.  Why?  She wanted to overwhelm the Nepali with hope.  What about churches coming together in Norwalk, Ohio to provide schoolkids with free backpacks, shoes, and socks for the upcoming school year?   What about the Salvation Army that quietly serves free meals to kids all summer long?  Despite what I see on the 6:00 news, I will focus on these stories.  “Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: the faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease.  Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.” (Lamentations 3:21-23 NLT)

There are countless stories that won’t make national headlines.  We need to focus on these ones.  So I ask you, what causes you to become overwhelmed with hope?