Category Archives: SPIRITUAL INTEREST

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What America Needs (to turn itself around)

A few thoughts: WHAT WE need to do to turn our country around–by turning our own lives around. We’re in this together, and we must do the right thing.

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8

If there is no repentance, it’s hard to find second chances. If there is no mercy, kindness lacks the ability to affect positive change. If there is no humility, the thing morphs into prideful acts. If there is no hatred of evil, then evil proliferates unchecked. If there is no speaking the truth, there is no knowledge of God’s redeeming love.

5 things we need to do–

Repent–

  • of our arrogance–seeing ourselves as better than others.
  • of our sins–not excusing our wrong attitudes, wrong behaviors, and wrong-minded speech
  • of our pride-in self, our acquisitions, and our successes. Everything we have is from the Lord
  • of our lack of love toward our neighbor, and our inactivity–in not helping them

Love Mercy–

  • extend mercy to those less fortunate than ourselves
  • see people with merciful eyes–see their neediness instead of their failures
  • pray mercy for others, divine mercy–that God will transform their lives and renew their souls
  • offer compassion with grace, in God’s love. God’s love flows through you to the world
  • be mercy to others–this will make a difference in your daily interactions

Walk Humbly–

  • with your God
  • with your fellow man, woman and child
  • in grace to others
  • and eschew self-adoration–being caught up with self–seen in self-pity, self-focus, and a preoccupation with self and family. Give God preeminence in your life. Let God redeem your life and the life of others.

Hate Evil–

  • hate sin and excuses for sinning (the devil made me do it!)
  • hate idol worship–anything you revere more highly than God
  • hate that which offends a righteous God
  • hate unrighteous acts–that are deceptive, misleading, that destroy human life, that are falsities, immoral, harm others, that are deceitful, promote wrong-doing or lusts

Speak Truth

  • by loving God, His Word, and obeying Him and His Word
  • by remaining true to the Word of God
  • -by sharing His gospel of truth and life-through loving others–in word, thought, charity, and deed

God has given us the tools to live life redemptively. A dead seed is planted in rich soil. A flower grows, and it makes us smile. A smile transforms a face, and it blesses others. Blessings in lives are thanks turned upward. Thanks turned upward behold the mystery of God.

Live Redemptively

America needs YOU.

Photo by Bermix Studio, Unsplash

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Slow Me Down Prayer

An elderly minister, age 80, read the prayer I am sharing. The gentleman’s copy of the prayer, written by Orlin L. Crain, was published on Easter Sunday, 1957. This prayer calms the spirit.

I came home and found the prayer online. Apparently it is also attributed to Wilferd Arlan Peterson and is also similar to a Hittite Prayer that is well known in Turkey.

Slow Me Down, Lord

“Slow me down, Lord! Ease the pounding of my heart by the quieting of my mind. Steady my harried pace with a vision of the eternal reach of time.

Give me, amidst the confusion of my day, the calmness of the everlasting hills. Break the tensions of my nerves with the soothing music of the singing streams that live in my memory. Help me to know the magical restoring power of sleep.

Teach me the art of taking minute vacations of slowing down to look at a flower; to chat with an old friend or make a new one; to pat a stray dog; to watch a spider build a web; to smile at a child; or to read a few lines from a good book.

Remind me each day that the race is not always to the swift; that there is more to life than increasing its speed. Let me look upward into the branches of the towering oak and know that it grew great and strong
because it grew slowly and well.

Slow me down, Lord, and inspire me to send my roots deep into the soil of life’s enduring values that I may grow toward the stars of my greater destiny.”

Why the Prayer Helps Us

We need to relax more, refresh in our inner self, breathe deeply of the fresh air. “He leads me beside still waters.” Rejuvenation comes in the quiet places, not in the harried places. We are renewed as rest regenerates our spirit with peace and is strengthened with goodness.