Reflecting

1 Thessalonians 3:11-13

Do you like to reflect on the place you are in life, and how you got to that point?  It may be a very good place, or it may be an empty place and you just wonder, what happened?  I find that reflecting makes me aware of how God’s hand has made me, now you may like the word guided me, but to be guided requires a person to be willing, and in my case often I was not open to follow.  So reflection exposes the hand of God working in my life and so often He arranged, set the stage, opened doors, answered prayer of others who were praying for me, but at that time I was blind to His hand.  In fact I often took credit for what seemed to be success, and looked for someone or a situation to blame when doors were closed, someone else got the promotion, or relationships were broken, and so on.

This morning I read these verses to Jan and ask her if anything jumped off the page at her and she said, “The word make and establish” the word make was what had gotten my attention.  As we were reflecting on how that had happened in our life situations, the name Annie Everett, came into my mind.  Now that is somewhat strange in that I never met Annie, but she became a very special person to Jan, when we were in our twenties.  I said, Jan do you remember Annie Everett, and what a blessing she was to you?  Her reply was, “do you recall how I met Annie,” and I didn’t, so she began telling me the rest of the story.  We were brand-new, I do mean little babies in Christ and Jan was working with teenage girls at Church and someone came up with a project to visit the old dears at the nursing home in Robstown, Texas.  To say that Jan was looking forward to this project was like saying Jan wanted all her teeth pulled, it was something she was very fearful of.

But God, yes God was going to make Jan, once more you may like the word set the stage or arrange circumstances to meet Annie Everett, who at that time was at 96 a very southern lady who was very sharp and very lonely.  Annie also had some great stories and a few secrets; one was that she dipped snuff, and did not want this young lady to know that she did such things.  Annie lived to be 102 as we recall, and she became a priority in my wife’s life, but not only Annie, many others at that nursing home became so special to my young bride.  But as Jan reflected this morning, she has no misgivings that it was God who made her go; so that out of her fears came a ministry of blessing, both to her and others.

Look and reflect on verse 12 & 13, “and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.”   

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice my blog; http://fromourbackporch.blogspot.com/