Barbara's Banter

Short and sweet thought for the week…

I must admit I get a little discouraged thinking about the storms of life. It seems like every time I turn around a friend or family member is going through another disheartening disaster. Cancer has threatened a loved one’s life. Fire has demolished a friend’s house. An unexpected death has left a family in turmoil. There are no words of comfort to console a weary soul. Prayer is our lifeline to help those in need.

Here is a thought I cling to when storms of life rage: Sometimes God calms the storm but when He doesn’t, God can calm the child. Only God can bring comfort out of chaos.

“The Lord will give strength to His people. The Lord will
bless His people with peace.” ~Psalms 29:11

Short and Sweet Thought for the Week…

It’s the New Year and already my life is in turmoil. My emails got hacked so I had to take my computer in for a diagnostic. But then, that’s a life lesson, isn’t it? Life is just one inconvenience after another. Some things never change whether it’s a new year or an old one. That’s not always such a bad thing. For example, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We can be thankful for that!

However, I will be trying to make a few changes for 2025. My goal is to downsize a bit and not do as much that isn’t necessary. Therefore, my 2025 blog theme will be modified. I’ve decided to make each post a short and sweet thought for the week. These might be my thoughts, or quotes, or sayings, or refrigerator magnet wisdom…with a few pithy comments to hopefully bring you a smile or something to ponder.

Let’s start with one of my favorites: Today is the first day of the rest of your life, so don’t screw it up. But if you do, don’t give up because God never gives up on you.

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning…” ~Lamentations 3:22-23

From God comes…

From God comes the New Year! Do we realize what a gift that is?

A New Year gives us more time to serve God and reflect His love to all we meet! We have another year to prioritize the most important aspects of life. We have more time to forget the failures of the past and look forward to the possibilities of the future.

Years are composed of days and each day is a gift from God. Psalms tells us, “This is the day that the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24).” Our days are gifts from God, but we choose how to use them.

To motivate good choices, people make New Year’s resolutions in hope of improving themselves. The most popular resolutions are to lose weight, exercise more, eat healthy, make more money, enjoy life more, and quit smoking. These are all admirable causes, but they aren’t really the most important aspects of our lives. The most important aspects of lives focus on God and others, not ourselves.     

There are many resolution choices we could make where others, including God, reap the benefit. Kindness is a choice. Rejoicing is a choice. Patience is a choice. Focusing on the positive is a choice. Being polite is a choice. Gratitude is a choice. Smiling is a choice. Prayer is a choice. Refusing to argue is a choice. Encouraging others is a choice. Praising God is a choice. These are some resolutions worth pursuing, and I’m sure we could all come up with many, many more.

The anomaly is that when we focus on God and others, we reap the benefit as well. That’s the way good and perfect gifts from God work. They benefit everyone!

“Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God…” ~

James 1:17 (NLT)

From God comes…

From God comes an indescribable gift.

During the Christmas season, our minds naturally turn to giving and receiving gifts. Some times we want to get people a one-of-a-kind gift or something that is custom-made just for them. Who wouldn’t want to receive something like that? Well, guess what? You already have!

It’s a good and perfect gift straight from God’s heart to you (James 1:17). His name is Jesus. The birth of Christ brings us more than glad tidings, for Christ is a one-of-a-kind, custom-made gift from God to all mankind. “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift (2 Corinthians 9:15)!”

Jesus is the gift that exceeds all others! He is our Redeemer (Psalm 130:7-8). He is the Lord of Righteousness (Jeremiah 23:4-5). He is full of wisdom, understanding, counsel, power, and knowledge (Isaiah 11:2-5). He is the Prince of Peace (Isiah 9:6-7). He is our Savior (John 3:16).

God showed us His love by sending us His Son, Jesus. God’s love for us was manifested by sending “His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him (1 John 4:9).” Jesus came to be an atonement for our sins (1 John 4:10). He sacrificed His life so we might be saved and redeemed (Ephesians 1:7).

How do you describe what is indescribable? Words cannot do justice to the gift of Jesus for words are very limiting. Our human ability to comprehend the width, length, depth, and height of His love for us is limited, whereas His love for us is limitless (Ephesians 3:18). To receive the gift of Jesus in our lives, we must learn to embrace and accept what we may not fully understand.

So don’t ever think you aren’t getting anything for Christmas. You already got the most wonderful gift of all. You might say it is indescribable. So, rejoice! The birth of Christ gives us many, many reasons to be merry!

“Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God…”

~James 1:17 (NLT)

From God comes…

From God comes peace.

When Jesus was born the angels declared, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace… (Luke 2:14)” But where is that peace? We certainly don’t see it around us. Countries are filled with conflict and war. People are filled with hate and anger. It can be discouraging and disheartening, especially at Christmastime when we so desire peace and love to be the norm. Unfortunately, it has been that way throughout history.

The famous America poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wrote a beloved poem on Christmas Day in 1863 during the Civil War. Death and devastation had devoured loved ones. Longfellow was in the midst of nursing his oldest son Charles back to health after a Confederate bullet almost paralyzed him while he listened to church bells ringing out good tidings on Christmas morning.

Henry struggled to reconcile his current situation and depressing plight of the war-torn land with the message the angels gave to the shepherds about peace on earth when Jesus was born. The result was the famous poem I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. It starts with…

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play.
And wild and sweet, the words repeat
Of peace on earth and good-will to men!

Soon the verses segue into a darker mood because of the state of events surrounding him.

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound the carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

After another verse or two, he writes…

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

As often happens when we pray, God grants a little clarity. He ends with…

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

The message of Christmas is not that Jesus caused peace to rain down like showers of blessings to all mankind. The message of Christmas is that Jesus is our peace. By worldly standards, He may have appeared to come to earth unnoticed, as an insignificant baby born in obscurity. However, by God’s criterion, the angels proclaimed His glory and He was declared the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).

Jesus came to be our peace (Ephesians 2:14). When we accept Jesus as our Savior, this inner peace is ours. With it, we can withstand difficult times. Plus, in the end, wrong will fail and right will prevail. Jesus told us that on earth we will have trials and sorrows, but “take heart, because I have overcome the world (John 16:33).”

“Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God…”

~James 1:17 (NLT)

From God comes…

From God comes grace. Grace from a spiritual perspective means undeserved, unmerited favor. Because of this favor, God bestows many blessings on us.

We may say to ourselves that we aren’t so bad. If we do good things, why shouldn’t we receive good gifts from God? However, blessings resulting from God’s grace cannot be earned. They are freely given to those who have accepted Jesus as their personal Savor (Ephesians 2:8-9). God’s grace is extended to us through Jesus Christ. We have all sinned and fallen short, but by God’s grace our sins are forgiven because of Jesus’s sacrifice (Ephesians 2:4-5).

Through Moses we received the law, but it is through Christ we receive truth and grace (John 1:17). This grace is God’s divine love flowing to us. Technically, God owes us nothing. Yet, when we surrender our lives to Him, we realize that we are supported and loved unconditionally.  

God’s grace is powerful. It provides sufficiency in all of our circumstances (2 Corinthians 9:8). Life can be filled with trouble and hardships. We all struggle to cope with problems. To spiritually survive, we must remember that our sufficiency comes through God’s grace (2 Corinthians 3:5).

Paul learned this when he asked God to remove a “thorn in the flesh” that bothered him (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). God does not always immediately deliver us from a trial. He didn’t in Paul’s situation. However, He did tell Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you… (2 Corinthians 12:9).”

Christians are not immune from troubles and hardships. They go through divorce, cancer, death of loved ones, career setbacks, financial losses, wars, imprisonment, floods, and tornadoes just like everyone else. God’s grace assures us we never have to face these trials alone. We have extra help. Only God knows how to turn weakness into strength, despair into hope, or light into darkness. Only God can give peace to a weary heart or heal a wounded soul. Trials may abound, but God’s grace can abound much more (Romans 5:20).

When we feel bombarded with one dire circumstance after another, we can feel numb. We feel like we are immersed in quicksand pulling us down. I’ve felt that way. Sometimes the only prayer I’ve been able to continually utter is, “Your grace is sufficient for me.” Even if I don’t feel it, I know it’s true. Sometimes I just repeat, “Jesus, you are enough,” over and over again—through the heartache and tears.

From God comes grace and God’s grace is a powerful thing! God’s grace provides strength to face each new day. God’s grace allows us to know that what happens on earth is temporary. God’s grace grants the assurance of hope for the future.

“Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God…”

~James 1:17 (NLT)

From God comes…

From God comes a true heart.

God is very big on heart issues. That’s why the Bible is full of references about our hearts. God doesn’t want us to just serve Him, but to serve Him from our hearts. 2 Chronicles 25:2 (NRSV) tells us about King Amaziah who “…did what was right in the sight of the Lord, yet not with a true heart.” Another word for true might be sincere.

Obedience is not enough. It’s a start but the goal is to respond to God from our hearts. Hebrews 10:22-25 (ESV) says, “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.”

The heart is at the core of our physical existence. We can live without a foot, leg, arm, hand, gall bladder, ear, eye, or even brain functions, but without a heart—we die.  

The heart is also central in reference to emotions, illustrated by these idioms. When we eat our hearts out, we are envious. Our heart breaks when we are sad. We lose our hearts when we fall in love. We follow our hearts when we are happy. When we say something from the bottom of the heart, we mean it sincerely. The cold-hearted are unforgiving. When we pour out our hearts, we are telling others how we feel.  

We cannot fool God. God knows our hearts better than we know ourselves (Hebrews 4:12). We can pretend we feel a certain way but eventually our hearts reveal our true attitudes. A good heart will bring about good for others. An evil heart will bring about bad for others. The truth will always come out. Our words eventually belie our true intentions (Luke 6:45). We will put time, money, and effort into where our heart is (Matthew 6:21).

Sometimes we use the phrase “to get to the heart of an issue.” That’s what God would like to do with us. He wants to replace our insincere hearts with new ones (Ezekiel 36:26). He actually wants to live in our hearts and be a part of our very lives. When we seek Him with all our hearts desiring a relationship with Him, He readily makes Himself available.  

We must guard our hearts because they determine how we live our lives (Proverbs 4:23 NIV). We do this by filling our thoughts with what is true, pure, lovely, good, virtuous, and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8). We guard our hearts by staying focused on God because only He can give us a true and sincere heart!

“Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God…”

~James 1:17 (NLT)

From God comes benefits.

One of my favorite scripture passages to read when I am discouraged or I don’t feel like praising God because my focus is inward, is Psalm 103. It starts with, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, praise His name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits (Psalm 103:1-2).”

This whole Psalm is a prayer praising God. Most of our prayers are petitions filled with requests, but this one is not. Technically, a Psalm is a song, so you might consider the Psalms a hymn book the Hebrews used to sing. In a way, this Psalm could be a version of more modern classics encouraging us to count our blessings! Benefit is just another word for blessing.   

There is none like our God who forgives our sins, heals our diseases, redeems our lives, crowns us with loving kindness, extends His tender mercies to us, satisfies us with good things, and renews our youth like an eagle’s (Psalm 103:3-5). God is the great Physician who heals our physical and spiritual bodies. He is our Redeemer who delivers us from the life’s pitfalls. He is the giver of every good and perfect gift. Even as we grow older, He lifts us up. A relationship with the living God gives our lives purpose and meaning no matter what age we are.  

God is righteous, just, merciful, and gracious (Psalm 103:6-8). He does not punish us according to our sins, but rather when we repent and turn to Him, He removes our transgressions far, far away (Psalm 103:10-12). Most of us live under the shadow of our past. Just knowing God has forgiven us frees us from guilt and depression.

God is our loving Father and knows our frailties (Psalm 103:13-16). His mercy is from everlasting to everlasting for those who acknowledge His greatness and strive to follow Him (Psalm 103:17-18). No one understands us like God does. And although He reaches down to meet us, He is the Ruler over all on earth and in heaven (Psalm 103:19). His power and majesty know no bounds. Even the angels worship Him and heed His word (Psalm 103:20).

Reading Psalm 103 helps me restore an attitude of gratitude which encourages me to do less complaining and more remaining in a spirit of thankfulness. I’ve heard it said that we must think before we can thank. Thinking about God’s greatness and His blessings is what Psalm 103 is all about. After reading it, I’m always reminded of benefits that come from a relationship with our magnificent, living God who loves me more than I could ever imagine.  

“Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God…”

~James 1:17 (NLT)

From God comes…

From God comes an offer to come to His table and dine with Him.

One of my favorite Bible stories is about Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan and grandson of Saul. King Saul resented David and tried to kill him because God decided David would replace him as king.

In spite of this, Saul’s son Jonathan and David became best friends. BFFs long before we knew what BFF meant.  

Mephibosheth was five years old when both his father and grandfather died in battle. His nurse was afraid for their lives and hastily fled (2 Samuel 4:4). This resulted in a bad fall that left him lame and unable to walk. He and the rest of his family took refuge and settled in the mountains of Gilead.  

David became king. Years passed, but David never forgot his humble beginnings nor the fact that Saul had been his king and Jonathan his best friend. He asked if there was anyone left from the house of Saul to whom he could show some kindness (2 Samuel 9:1). When he found out that Jonathan’s son was alive, he had his servants find Mephibosheth and bring him to the palace (2 Samuel 9:6).

Mephibosheth fearfully bowed before King David because he had no idea why he was there. Imagine his surprise when David announced he wanted to show him kindness and restore Jonathan’s land to him. Plus, he wanted him to live at the palace in Jerusalem and eat at his table like one of his sons (2 Samuel 9:7). Mephibosheth had a place at the King’s table and ate there continually (2 Samuel 9:11-3).   

What a beautiful picture of loving kindness! Mephibosheth was overwhelmed by King David’s offer. He referred to himself as a “dead-dog” and felt totally unworthy of such favor (2 Samuel 9:8).  

There are some parallels here as we think about our relationship with Christ. Mephibosheth was physically lame and crippled. By the same token, we are spiritually weak and helpless (Romans 5:6). His family had been enemies of David. As descendants of Adam filled with sin, we were considered God’s enemies (Romans 5:10). Yet, God has shown us unbelievable kindness. He has brought us into His family and given us provision, favor, and a place at His table, just like David did for Mephibosheth.

We were lame, forgotten, and unworthy when Jesus found us and invited us to sit at His table. Not only do we dine with Him every time we partake of Communion but we are to be part of the marriage supper of the Lamb. God calls those who are invited to that event blessed (Revelation 19:9). He’s talking about you and me. We will be eating at the King’s table laden with a bountiful feast. It’s good to know that we have a place at His table—now and forever!  

“Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God…”

~James 1:17 (NLT)

From God comes…

From God comes time. Each year when we switch our clocks by springing forward or falling back, I keep wishing they would just pick a time and stick with it. Unfortunately, no one consults me about these decisions. So, I just resign myself to the fact that it is what it is, and then remind myself that time itself is a gift from God.

Yes, time is a gift from God—but a limited one. We don’t know how much time we have to live (James 4:14; Psalm 39:4-5). Therefore, time is a valuable commodity (Psalm 90:12). So, we are admonished to make the most of it (Colossians 4:5; Ephesians 5:15-17).

God has also appointed a time for everything in our lives. Ecclesiastes 3:1 tells us, “To everything there is a season. And a time for every purpose under heaven.” God put the sun and moon in the heavens to mark seasons (Genesis 8:22; Psalm 104:19). He has also given us various seasons or times in our lives (Ecclesiastes 3:2-8). There’s a time to be born and a time to die. There is a time to plant and a time to reap…and so on.

God is not tied to time like we are. Modern life teaches us to expect things to happen quickly. We have learned to rush but not to wait. We want fast food, minute rice, and instant gratification. However, the richest rewards may require us to wait on God’s divine timing (Psalm 27:14). Waiting is not a natural part of our biological chemistry, so it is difficult. We think that waiting robs us of our valuable time, but it is necessary if we are to know the true meaning of trusting God. In fact, while waiting is an excellent opportunity to redeem our time (Ephesians 5:15-16).  

Carl Sandburg once said, “Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.” Therefore, we must practice using our time wisely.

Believe it or not, God gives us enough time to do what He wants us to do. Plus, God understands the experiences, emotions, and transitions we encounter during our time here on earth and in His wisdom, He gives us time to process them. Through the prompting of the Holy Spirit within us, God can help direct our time and energy wisely.

God’s timing is better than ours. For example, sometimes we may think we have our day perfectly planned, but God has other ideas. That’s His prerogative. We can trust God in these situations. After all, our time is in God’s hands (Psalm 31:15).

“Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God…”

~James 1:17 (NLT)