Joy and Strength (Christian life and music)

Did you know that there is an ultimate, true Reality?  There is also the reality of what we can see, touch, and feel. I have been asking the Lord a lot lately to please reveal more of His Reality to me.  This is because like you, I can get bogged down in the earthly, daily "reality" of life. The Lord tells us to hope in Himself.  When we hope in earthly things, accomplishments, places, people, and things, we miss the mark.  Did you know that that is the literal definition of the word sin?  To miss the mark, as in when we aim an arrow at the target and miss. How to straddle Reality and reality?  After all we are not in heaven quite yet.  We live in these earthen vessels for now with all of their issues and problems.  We do not waft on a cloud of perfect peace most days.  At least I don't. Instead, I welcome anxiety and confusion.  "Come on in!" I say.  But they do not have a place in the life and heart of a Christ-follower.   Christ has promised to give us His pe

So my New Year prayers started out with me telling God what to do. I only half jest.  As I prayed on my knees, pouring out my heart to Him, I wasn’t finding peace. I was feeling more turmoil than peace. Until... I finally blurted out, "Lord, I give You carte blanche with my life."  Then, sweet release. His beautiful peace filled my soul. It seems counterintuitive to how we are wired in the natural.  We all want some semblance of control over our lives.  But when you belong to the Lord, He leaves some things seemingly unresolved in your life.  I don't know all the reasons why He does this.  I only know that all He does is done in love.  Great love.  Everlasting love.  Holy love.  Righteous love.  Problem with us is that we've been sold a bill of goods as to what real love is.  So when God, in His perfect love, allows certain trials to linger in our lives, our rational, worldly, fleshly minds cannot understand why He would allow such seemingly harmful things to continue

I've been touchy lately.  Irritable.  Short-tempered.  Letting every little - and big - thing get to me.  I've been a nervous wreck. I think it's the cumulative affect of being in lock down for so long. I keep thinking that I need a vacation, that some R&R would do the trick. Then today, as I was reading in Hebrews chapters 4-6 about the rest of God, I got thinking about how Jesus never took vacations (as far as we know).  And though Jesus was always in God's peace, He was a very busy man!  Every day, everywhere He went, He was in demand as a teacher, healer, and rescuer.   Now Jesus went away frequently to pray.  And He spent time with His Father.  This rejuvenated Him. But I spend time every morning with Jesus, too.  Without fail.   Yet just a few hours into the day, depending on what is happening around me, I find myself getting upset about something or someone. How to stay in the rest and peace of God? What causes us stress?  How do we manage it?  Was Jesus ever