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- Written by: Don Goulding
The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:8 (NETFull)
As missionaries in the South Pacific islands, one of our most rewarding ministries happened on Saturdays. We regularly took a dozen abuse survivors and their babies to a favorite swimming hole. Sparkling water tumbled through the jungle, and emptied into an emerald pool shaded by ropy banyan trees. From there, the mountain stream eased over a glassy lip and dropped fifty feet where it roared into another pool.
Children squealed with laughter, and their mothers played in God’s healing nature. We were privileged to serve this restorative ministry.
That tropical field trip destination is a reminder of how God’s love works. I don’t love other people with my own resources, but rather with God’s love, that briefly swirls through me before it is replaced afresh.
The upper pool never looked down on the next basin to decide if it was a worthy recipient. It couldn’t help but dump into whatever was beside it. In the same way, I can’t choose with whom I share God’s love. The person the Lord puts near me becomes the target of my overabundance. They may or may not receive it well. They might be already clogged with bitterness. Yet, God’s love rushing through me must spill mercy in their direction.
In fact, if I’m not loving others, it can mean only one thing—I’m not receiving God’s love.
Prayer: God of love, pour right through my life.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul. (Psalms 23:2, 3) (NIV)
Our family had a kite and we flew it in California’s Yosemite Valley. We reclined in a sun-filled meadow and felt the yellow aerobat tug into the blue. The world’s madness disappeared behind waving grass, contented oaks, and granite sentries.
Then we discovered a secret beach. A kaleidoscope of greens danced in the river, while birch trees dipped their rooty toes in the water. Behind grasslands with the color variations of a mango, a waterfall cavorted like a playful billy goat.
It seemed that deadlines and worries were unable to live on Yosemite’s crystalline air.
By trusting my Shepherd, I can lie in interior pastures far greener and by waters much quieter than those in Yosemite. Jesus calls me to a stress free life. I am to heed heaven’s music and tune out the nonsense of the world.
The Gospels repeatedly tell how Jesus ignored the placations of Nicodemus, the evasions of the woman at the well, and the accusations of the Pharisees. He jumped directly to conversations of wholeness. He lives within the peace of God, and he invites us to bask there with him.
There’s no need for constant dialogue about what went wrong in the past, or how we’ll make it in the future, or a thousand other needless anxieties. Nine-tenths of what the world has to say has no bearing on my true existence. I glance at social media out of pity, but I must not allow mankind’s fears to reach me. I’m in a green meadow of provision and by a quiet stream of love, and the name of both of them is Jesus.
Prayer: Jehovah Rohi (The Lord Our Shepherd), make my heart a quiet place.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
“… yet he did not leave himself without a witness by doing good, by giving you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying you with food and your hearts with joy.” (Acts 14:17)
The artist filled his canvas with pewter clouds, and anything alive hid from the storm. He smeared his finger sideways, mixing white and gray with a gusty stroke. Then his masterpiece napped as a snowy blanket floated down, and left only hints of the contours below. Serenity waltzed with beauty.
Beads from the night’s rain clung to spring grass. Sunlight lit every drop until they radiated colors from the spectrum—rubies and emeralds cast among diamonds. Each bead sang a perfect solo—together, they made a glorious chorus.
Chest high ears of durum wheat stood in the summer warmth. The field smelled of tilled earth and nutty kernels. An interruption rustled among the stocks. Rows of wheat bowed their heads as an invisible personage blew past—perhaps their wonderful King.
“Honk, honk,” bicycle horns squeezed overhead. A vee formation of trumpeter geese soared through the pines, white necks stretched into conifer-green. The elegant friends laughed their way southward. “We’re playing tag, and winter is chasing us. Honk, honk.”
It’s all too wonderful. Creation, with its seasonal faces, envelops me in God’s splendor. God is not nature any more than I’m a song I write or a sandcastle I build. But in what he has made, I learn something of his wild creativity and his passionate joy.
Prayer: Alpha and Omega, your creation fills me with joy for who you are.