Returning to God

On July 21, 2022 By vickleaIn Scripture4 Comments

There is a lot of talk these days about a coming revival and the hope that it will bring to a spiritually starved America. However, as in the days of Hosea, I don’t see revival on the horizon. Instead, I see God’s justice which leads to His judgment. We as a nation have turned our backs on God, angrily declaring that we can take care of ourselves and don’t need Him any longer. Of course, those of us who are believers in His grace and mercy and love know that we need Him in our lives daily. But the verse that stood out to me as I read Hosea this morning does much to explain the spiritual condition of our nation.

When what you are doing is so awful that you don’t want to even acknowledge it as sin, then you are not prone to turn to God, but rather away from Him. When the House passed a bill yesterday to establish same-sex marriage as legal in all the states, where was the outrage against their actions? I do believe that interracial marriage is sanctified, but I also believe that same-sex marriage is a sin. Our lawmakers want to “normalize” this sinful act and force us to accept it. They cannot acknowledge God as Lord and justify such an action. The spirit of prostitution that Hosea refers to seems to me to be rampant in the U.S. today, I’m sad to say. The lawmakers have sold themselves to the highest bidder, otherwise known as lobbyists. The voters have sold themselves to the lawmakers who promise them more freedom at the cost of their future legacy for their children. I’m saddened by the state of our nation, but I am not surprised. We got on this slippery slope decades ago and the ride is carrying us faster and faster to the promise of hell, not Heaven.

Am I totally distraught about this whole mess that our nation is in? No, because I have read the end of the Book and we win! It’s just the part of the book in which we are now that I’m not liking because I want God to come swiftly with judgment, but I also want Him to continue His mercy and grace for just a while longer so more can come to know Him. I trust that His way and timing are perfect, and as I see this nation slide farther into sin and debauchery, I cannot help but think that God is just, waiting and saying to His people that a time will come when every knee will bow to His sovereignty.

I hope that you have a blessed day, but remember to pray for our leaders. There are some (perhaps only a few) who are trying to stand strong in the face of great evil and they need our prayerful support.

Ready or Not!

On July 20, 2022 By vickleaIn Scripture2 Comments

Remember the old game we played as children called Hide ‘n’ seek? Some hid and one child would count and then call out loudly, “Ready or not, here I come!” As Christians, we are supposed to always be ready for Christ to return. But there is more to that statement because as the Bible reveals, we also have to always be ready to tell others about Him, the hope who lives within us.

It’s easy to converse with others and not bring up God because we are very self-centered. Recently, I spent a week with my sister and got to give the testimony of God’s grace and goodness in my life, particularly when I had my stroke. I found myself veering off topic and talking about how quickly the ambulance arrived, how I got the clot-busting shot just in time and how my beloved husband slept on the floor alongside my bed in the ICU. Almost as an after-thought, I found myself saying that God was good to me and set everything up perfectly for me to be saved and alive. An after-thought! After all that He has done for me? What was I thinking? The truth is that I wasn’t. I was just telling the story and forgot to make God the center of it when He has been the center of my life for years. Apparently, though, I was not ready to give an answer that included Him until the end of the story. I’m resolving from now on to make Him the beginning, middle and end of the story and the rest of the story (the “fluff”) can go wherever it fits, if it fits. I don’t want to miss out on other opportunities to give God all of the glory!

How about you? Have you missed out on opportunities like the one I described? Good thing that God is the God of second chances (and third, and fourth, etc.). I have no doubt that He will remind me of this incident and help me the next time that I am giving this testimony to give the answer that is the real reason that I’m alive and recovered from a massive stroke. God was right there with me, from the ambulance ride, to the ER, in the ICU and in rehab. Every step I took and every skill I had to learn, He was there with me, encouraging me with His love. He is certainly always patient with me and wants me to get better at giving an answer. Thus, I have started my answer on this page. I’m ready now!

I hope that your day is blessed with opportunities to point to God and give the only answer to the hope that lives within you.

Review of THE BODYGUARD by Katherine Center

On July 19, 2022 By vickleaIn Book ReviewLeave a comment

This is one of those books that I didn’t want to ever end because I was having so much fun reading about Hannah and Jack and their misadventures. Hannah Brooks is a small woman in stature but she leaves a big footprint as an executive protection agent. Her current assignment is to protect superstar Jack Stapleton from a would-be stalker and against her better judgment, she pretends to be his girlfriend in order to stay undercover. Her role as a bodyguard soon takes a swift turn off the tracks when Hannah finds herself protecting her own heart just as much as she is protecting Jack. The story of these two totally different people is one for the record books and was laugh out loud humorous at times. There were also serious moments as Hannah came to some deep realizations about herself, her past and her choices. The lessons she learns as she travels the path of self-acceptance are invaluable to all of us who have ever dealt with self-esteem issues. The characters are mostly likable and relatable, although I must admit that Robby is a playboy who thinks he’s all that and more, so not particularly my cup of tea. I did enjoy meeting Wilbur, a man with deep problems and a huge talent for making birdhouses. Glenn, Hannah’s boss, was rough around the edges and very demanding but also practical and real-to-life. The plot moved along at a fast clip, much to my dismay, because I seriously did not want this story to end. I wanted to know more about Hank, Jack’s brother, and his parents and Hannah’s backstory. And I wanted to know more about Doghouse and Kelly who seemed kind of attracted to each other in a quirky kind of way. There are so many reasons to like this book and I cannot think of one reason why someone wouldn’t enjoy it. It’s light, contemporary fiction with some very original twists in a creative plot.
Disclaimer
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255, “Guidelines Concerning the Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising.”

*BookPage* calls Katherine Center “the reigning queen of comfort reads.” She’s the *New York Times* bestselling author of eight books, including *How to Walk Away*, *Things You Save in a Fire*, and her newest, *What You Wish For*. Katherine writes laugh-and-cry books about how life knocks us down—and how we get back up. She’s been compared to both Jane Austen and Nora Ephron, and the Dallas *Morning News* calls her stories, “satisfying in the most soul-nourishing way.” Her books have made countless Best-Of lists, including *RealSimple*’s Best Books of 2020, Amazon’s Top 100 Books of 2019, Goodreads’ Best Books of the Year, and many more. Bestselling author Emily Henry calls her summer 2022 book, *The Bodyguard*, “a shot of pure joy.” The movie adaptation of Katherine’s novel *The Lost Husband* (starring Josh Duhamel) hit #1 on Netflix, and her novel *Happiness for Beginners* is in production now as a Netflix original starring Ellie Kemper. Katherine lives in her hometown of Houston, Texas, with her husband, two kids, and their fluffy-but-fierce dog. **Photo and Bio from the author’s website at** http://www.katherinecenter.com

New book releases today! Purchase Links:

Never Thirsty Again

On July 18, 2022 By vickleaIn Scripture1 Comment

Since I take various medications for various conditions, I often have a dry mouth and feel thirsty, even after drinking water. This is not atypical, according to my doctor, and it is nothing to be concerned about.

The living water from Jesus means that I am not thirsty spiritually. My spirit overflows with his love, truth and wisdom, just as it should. That is the only way that I can help fill the thirst of others. I go to the bottomless well that Jesus provides through His Spirit and His Word. It quenches my thirst and prepares me to give His water of life to others.

May your day be blessed with soul-filling water from the Source of Life!

Call on Him

On July 17, 2022 By vickleaIn Scripture2 Comments

This is a good verse to remember. God provided for our forgiveness and redemption, but we have to reach out and call on Him. His love is always there, just waiting for us to realize how close He has been the whole time.

May your day be blessed with the reality of the presence of the Lord!

Meditation for Today

On July 16, 2022 By vickleaIn ScriptureLeave a comment

Have you ever had a really good friend who knows everything about you and still loves you in spite of it? This was my meditation this morning and I am blessed by how well God knows me and still loves me. He even knows my thoughts and my words before I speak them. Even when I speak from anger instead of love, God knows and loves. That is a sacrificial love that chooses to love in spite of who I am and not because of who I am. It’s WHOSE I am that really matters to Him! The really good news is that He loves each of us the same way, with the same fervor and the same knowledge. How can we do any less than seek to know Him better each day and to be pleasing to Him in our thoughts and words?

Have a blessed day and enjoy your fellowship with the Lord today!

Being Quiet

On July 15, 2022 By vickleaIn Quotation and Citations, Scripture7 Comments

Less than a decade ago, I shared my thoughts about everything that matters to me: life, death, politics, abortion, etc. I spread my thoughts everywhere, thinking perhaps that I was giving others the benefits of my vast knowledge and experience. No, what I was actually doing was being shortsighted and setting myself up for failure when I tried to share the Gospel with others.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I was not trying to start a quarrel, but that is usually how things went. My liberal family members had met their match in having the last word with me since I was determined to have it. Fast forward a decade or so and I have learned the hard lesson to just be quiet. Yes, the other person may think that I know that my point of view is wrong so I’m not defending it. Or, they may be thinking that they have won an argument that never got started because I refused to participate. What really happened is I got wiser with age and just don’t want the drama of arguing just to win a point. In gaining that point, I may be destroying my witness to that person, and it’s not really wroth it. Thus when friends or family pontificate about how wrong I am about current issues, I just listen. I don’t nod in agreement or smile or anything. I just listen. Did you know that after only a few minutes, they cease to lecture me on their worldview, seeing as I am not being at all argumentative and thus cutting off the water supply to the dam of their outrage that is about to break?

We would all do well to remember this adage from Abraham Lincoln. I have sat in the company of what I would call many foolish people determined to prove that their point of view is the right one, in fact, the only one. I figure that eventually, either on this side of Heaven or the other one, they will be proven wrong by the One who is greater than they. Jesus never argued His points; He should stated them and people could accept them or not. Then He moved on. That’s a good example to follow, don’t you think?

May your day be filled with wonder and blessings!

Blinded

On July 14, 2022 By vickleaIn Scripture4 Comments

There are multiple ways to be blind. One, of course, is physically being unable to see. That condition sadly is happening to my sister now as she has macular degeneration. I have watched her go from seeing well, to seeing poorly and now to having difficulty seeing things at all. She uses a huge bold font on her e-reader to be able to read her beloved books. It breaks my heart that she is losing her vision in such a stealthy manner.

Others are blind and don’t know it because they are spiritually blind. That is what I think God is referring to in this Scripture.

I’m glad that God takes our hand and leads us when we are blinded to His truth, smoothing the way before us to accept Jesus as Lord. And the promise that Jesus made in Matthew is here, too. He will never leave us nor forsake us.

One of my heart’s desires is to see my sister come to salvation so that although her physical sight may be diminished or gone, her spiritual sight will be just beginning. I’m spending the week with her and trying to be a good witness. She is so depressed about having to move to NC after living in VA for almost five decades. I don’t know how to help her, but I can pray and I hope that you all who believe in the power of prayer will pray with me.

I hope that each of you has a blessed day, clearly seeing the path that God has established for you for this day. Each new day is a miracle, so reach out to others and start working with God!

Although…

On July 13, 2022 By vickleaIn Scripture2 Comments

There are a lot of people in our world today that will convince you that they are smart. But then when you really listen to them and what they believe, you know that their intelligence is for nought. Instead of worshipping our Creator, they worship things: “Mother Earth” or its creatures, or worse, they idolize themselves and all of their accomplishments. I feel sorry for these people because they don’t know the blessing that they are missing by not acknowledging God as Supreme and accepting that they are part of His creation. I appreciate the earth and all that God has given to us on it, the beauty of nature and the songs of the birds, the butterflies that flutter and the flowers that bloom. But I don’t worship nature and I don’t call it my mother because I have a Father who made it all and who wants me to serve and worship Him, for my own good. There are too many looking to serve a host of other things, especially self, and that is to the detriment of themselves and society as a whole. God will have the last say in the end. He started this world and I have complete faith that when He is ready, He will end it. I hope and pray that many will see their foolish pursuit of pleasure and idolatry for what it is and turn back to the Creator who never stopped loving them.

Have a blessed day, my friends. I am here in NC with my sister and plan to be a blessing while I am here. Time to unpack some boxes for her and help her to make this place feel more like home.

Doing Good

On July 12, 2022 By vickleaIn Scripture2 Comments

As a grammarian, one of my pet peeves of misuse of words is when someone asks how you are doing, your answer is, “I’m doing good.” I made it a habit to consistently correct my students who said this because as I told them, Mother Theresa “did good” so what you mean to say is that you are doing fine. After many years of following this habit, I just gave up. After all, it’s in common use now. But as I gave up the grammar rules, I did not give up on the hope that indeed they are “doing good.”

We do good for others and eventually we may reap a harvest, the harvest of their souls that live eternally with God. We just keep doing good in spite of all of the evil in the world that assaults us daily and in spite of the attacks from those who would thwart our good. So, how am I doing today? I’m planning on doing good and I hope that you are, too.

And the passage continues in the next verse that we are to do good at every opportunity. In fact, I think that we are to look for ways to do good to/for others. The young man in line behind us looks longingly at a snack at the checkout counter. Purchase it for him and tell him to have a blessed day. The young clerk in the store looks so weary that a smile is not part of their greeting. Smile at him/her and tell them what a good job they’re doing and that you appreciate their hard work. There are small things we can do everyday and there are people who go about the world doing their jobs but they don’t seem to be seen, like the housekeeping people in the hospital or the man who collects the trash every week. They deserve our respect, our gratitude and for us to take time to do good for them. A prayer is one of the best ways we can do good for others. It may not be seen or heard but my faith says that it will be felt and it will make a difference.

I hope that you all have a blessed day and that you are all “doing good.”

Vickie's Book Nook and Meditation Corner

Month: July 2022