Word Prompt

So it’s 1224 as I write this post, I’m starting to get tired, thinking I should be hitting the hay soon. 

BUT I haven’t done my Five Minute Friday post yet, the word this week is FLY.  

I see that word and all I can think of is how people will fly into a rage tomorrow.   Expecting an NDP government in Ontario, and then discovering we have a PC one, against all odds. Then again, I think of how we’re Canadians and we tend to take things in stride, realizing that one government form over another isn’t going to ruin a province or a system.  There are so many checks and balances in place, and there’s so much debt already, is a change really going to matter?   It’s hard to say, it was a lousy election all round.   Lots of name calling and the like.   It did provoke some interesting discussions with my lad, he sees things in such a black and white manner yet.

The whole fly into a rage thing has me considering the Lord (as I start to turn introspective late at night).  How he flew into a rage one day, driving pigeons, cattle and money changers out of the temple.  So angry he was “you shall not turn my Father’s house into a den of thieves, it’s to be a house of prayer.” (or words to that affect).

It makes me wonder if anger over governmental changing of hands is justified?  Is one any worse then the other?  Are they affecting how God is worshipped?   I dunno, I don’t think so. 

Anyways, those are my thoughts just as I head to bed.  🙂   No poem this week, maybe I’ll write one tomorrow just for fun.  🙂

Today’s Five Minute Friday word is secret.  I tried last night to come up with something but my exhaustion drove thoughts out of my mind.   When I arose this morning I had this song running through my head.

In the secret, in the quiet place
In the stillness You are there.
In the secret, in the quiet hour I wait,
Only for You,’cause I want to know You more;

These are the first few lines from Chris Tomlin’s In The Secret.  

This week I have struggled to find a quiet place, a time where I could seek after knowing the Lord more.   Do you ever have days or weeks like that?  Where carving out needed, necessary time with the source of one’s faith is a struggle?  It has this tendency to make me feel inadequate as a believer, like I’m really not making important, what is of primary importance in my life.   My reading from yesterday helped me bring this part of me into perspective again.  That faith shouldn’t be based on my feelings, on my thinkings of how I am doing in my faith journey, but should always, definitively be based on the source of faith.  On the Lord God himself and his work through his son.  

I’m recalled to mind of how Jesus would get tired and withdraw from the busyness of life and people.  Taking time to be alone with his followers, and/or with God.   There are numerous examples of this throughout the New Testament.

It gives me cause to wonder if God understands, that he gets it in a way that we don’t. How even though he calls us to holiness and to be something more than we are, that he understands us in a deep way that we can’t really fathom. So that if we sometimes struggle to show his importance in our life due to distraction by family needs and issues (not just being busy with the peripherals of life.) that he understands it.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”How even though he calls us to holiness and to be something more than we are, that he understands us in a deep way that we can’t really fathom.” quote=”How even though he calls us to holiness and to be something more than we are, that he understands us in a deep way that we can’t really fathom.”]

As I look at the call to spend time in secret (which really isn’t so secret if you are trying to raise a boy in the Lord) with the Lord, I need to see less my guilt in how I act out my faith, and see more the One who CALLS me to meet with him in secret, and in public, and at any time of the day.  

What think you?   Do you ever struggle with meeting with the Lord?   Of spending time with him in the scurry of life?  How have you learned to deal with your disappointment with yourself?

Oh…this week’s Five Minute Friday is a hard one.  The word is REGRET!

To regret something is to feel sad, or repentant, or disappointed over something. 

As the mother of boy who is particular in word usage, and the wife of a hubby who is much the same (but over the years has gained a lot of tolerance) it’s become more important to me to think through the words I say to make sure I am conveying what I want to, especially to a lad who hasn’t developed the same tolerance/understanding as his dad. 

So when I see these three words: sad, repentant, disappointed… they mean different things to me depending on the context used.

To feel sad to me is not the same thing as feeling repentant.   Sadness doesn’t denote change, it’s a feeling not an action, whereas repentance does.   If we regret something we have a choice about how we deal with it…true regret is seen in change made doesn’t it?  That is what repentance is.  The seeing of something that makes one feel sorrowful and that sorrow causes regret over action which leads to repentance.  It’s a one begets the other type of change.

It leads to the question of what then is regret in the life of a Christian believer.  

What then is regret?

Does it lead to change?  Or does it lead the “I’m sorry’s” without change?   I can’t answer that question for other believers but I know what it does in my life.

Sometimes it leads to profound change.  When like Ezra I am so shocked that my sin (that I hadn’t seen before) exists that it just stuns me and I make change as fast as I can.   Leads to tears and self-recrimination and than acceptance at the Lord’s forgiveness.

Sometimes my regret doesn’t lead to repentance but more of a quick “I’m sorry Lord” and a short-lived feeling of sadness and a silent hope to do better next time.  The regret is real, but it’s easily dismissed because I said I was sorry and thought about what I could do to make future actions different.

And then there are the times when I feel caught out in wrong doing and I find a way to justify my actions rather than accepting the blame that is indeed mine.   There is no regret or repentance or anything like that.  Just self-justification of how “it’s just a little thing” or “everyone does it” or “he made me do it” or …… you know how it goes.   It doesn’t change what it is…. rebellion against God.  No regret, no repentance….. perhaps some sadness that someone tried to tell me what I was doing was wrong… but more likely just a feeling of anger of How Dare They!?!?

These words are different

These words are different but they are connected.  Sadness doesn’t always mean regret, but it can be the first step that leads to repentance because of the regret that sadness can often create.   Here what God’s word has to say “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.” 2 Corinthians 7:10 and “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out”. Acts 3:19.

How then will regret affect our lives?