Life on Loan

The view was picturesque. The fields livening the wintered countryside with young green wheat. Stately pines standing like centuries. Rolling hills. Not a cloud in the blue sky. The sun spreading its late afternoon beams before the close of the day.


As I took in the beauty of the moment, the words of this majestic hymn began to play through my mind.

" I sing the mighty power of God, that made the mountains rise; 

That spread the flowing seas abroad, and built the lofty skies...

As I reached the last verse of this song, the words struck me in a way that they had never before.

 "Creatures that borrow life from Thee are subject to Thy care..."

Creatures borrowing life? I had never even considered that my life is borrowed from God.

When God created man, He breathed His own breath into him, supplying him with life. So, our breath, which is our life, comes from God.

Every- breath- I take, comes from God.

Imagine.

God gave me life. I take the breath that He has so graciously given me, and use it to dishonor Him. Oh, the horror...

"How?" you might ask. How many times have I wasted borrowed breath to satisfy selfish desires, speak thoughtless or senseless words that I would give anything to take back... Oh, how many precious moments have been frittered away with the inconsequential... How many times emotions have been wasted over trivial matters... It seems that I, or might I dare say, we completely miss the reason why our lives have been loaned to us...

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Father, please let me not waste the precious life that you've loaned me. Let my life, my every breath, give honor to You.

No Mendelssohn?

"I'm really sorry, but I think that we will have to call this piece off ", my conductor stated. "I've done all I can, but I can't practice this for you."

I groaned inside. Really? All this time practicing this Mendelssohn piece and... this? 

It was the day before the orchestra concert. I spent many hours practicing the given music, trying to be ready for a great performance.

This was my first year participating in a youth orchestra, and I came with high hopes. I expected to play great musical works (which we did), meet youth musicians that were passionate and focused, and work together so we could have a fantastic performance. As I went through the rehearsal season, I learned some enlightening information on what makes an orchestra or any group really good.

You might imagine that I should have already known this.  I did, in principle. Then I learned in reality.

Teamwork. [teem- wurk]  You do your part. I do my part. We work together to reach a common goal.

Our director was excellent. Our performance was good. If only all the students had worked as a tenacious and committed team, then we would have been able to play this discarded piece and maybe even done better on the other pieces chosen.

Lesson learned.

If just one single person isn't committed to practice, then they lower the performance of their whole section. Now, the performance of the whole orchestra is lowered.  Everyone must give their absolute best!

The ultimate example of teamwork is depicted in Heaven. All heaven is doing their part to save us from Satan's trap- eternal death. A favorite author of mine once wrote:

"All heaven is actively engaged in working out the plans of God... The angels, thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand are commissioned... to guard us against evil and press back the powers of darkness that are seeking our destruction."

God's love for us is so great that not just He, but all the angels of heaven are doing their part to protect us from Satan and lead us to Jesus so that we can then experience life without sin, death or destruction. Each is giving his best effort so that we can know God's amazing love for us and His plans for us to live with Him forever.

Heaven is doing all it can.

What will you do?

~Joi

They drank up all my water!

I had just finished a time consuming job of weed- whacking when looking up and to my surprise, visitors were coming to see me! It was June, a new friend whom I had met a few months before and her brother, Gus. How delightful! 

I called to my sister to come and greet them. We visited with them for a few minutes and expected them soon to leave, being that they came at a later hour in the evening. June is not normally prone to long visits, but, strangely, today they were in no mood for leaving- or hint taking either.

After some time, my sister went inside and I was left to entertain them. Southern hospitality dictated that I could never be a rude hostess and make them leave, so we continued in one another's company. Eventually, they seemed to stop paying much attention to what I was saying. They became distracted and probing with their expressions as if looking for something... I quickly realized what it was. Dear, dear I had been a rude hostess and not offered them water! Seeing that, they decided to take matters into their own -eh ehm "hands". Catching a glimpse of a nearby container with water in it, they simultaneously darted to it, and very discourteously drank it all up! 

Realizing  their desperate need of water , I quickly ran to the hose and turned it on so they could drink freely  Gus drank, and drank, and drank. He was so absorbed in drinking that he bit me and the end of the hose!

I am sure you have never experienced any of these type guests, or at least I hope not! 

While writing about this, I remembered that on a previous visit from June, she received water. She must have gone home and told her brother about the free water source she had here. Maybe this was reason she brought her brother . She wanted him to come so he too could satisfy his parched snout on their regular explorations (you can probably guess what type of visitors I had).  

This experience reminds me a lot of a story about Jesus and a woman at a well in her town in Samaria. Jesus realized that she was very thirsty too. Not thirsty for water that she could find at the town well, but a type water that satisfies thirst for life. What is this type of water? Jesus says that He is that water. He is the only one that can satisfy the drought and emptiness of our lives that we try to fill with stuff that seems to make us happy but in the end we still feel thirsty.  He will give us all the water that we need. How do we drink this water? Once again, we must spend time with Jesus. When talking to Jesus, reading about Him and asking Him to be in our hearts, He fills us with His wonderful water- water that never runs outs!

That woman did the same thing as June. Once she found out where to get this wonderful water, she ran home and told her friends and family about it!

Let's be like June and share Jesus, the true source of water.

~Joi