Tag Archives: outdoors

Joyce Meyer – Visit the Still Waters

Joyce meyer

He makes me lie down in [ fresh, tender] green pastures; He leads me beside the still and restful waters.

—Psalm 23:2

This particular psalm is familiar to most people, but have you ever given much thought to the “still and restful waters”? I believe this is where you find quiet rest and strength to face the pressures of life.

One might say that the “still waters” are healing waters. The quiet and stillness contain restorative qualities for your soul.

The still waters are available at all times, but we go there far too seldom. Anytime you feel the slightest urge or need you may visit the still waters, if only for a few minutes. Let everything get quiet, and then bask in the beauty of solitude. Silence can teach us more in a moment than all the noise in the world ever could.

So spend more time beside the still waters and find peaceful rest for your soul.

Max Lucado – Stay in the Race

Max Lucado

Don’t give up! In 1952 Florence Chadwick attempted to swim the ocean waters between Catalina Island and the California shore—through foggy weather and choppy seas.  After 15 hours her muscles began to cramp and her resolve weakened. She begged to be taken out of the water, but her mother riding in a boat alongside, urged her not to give up. She kept trying but grew exhausted.  Aids lifted her out of the water. As they paddled a few more minutes, the mist broke. She discovered shore was less than a half mile away. She said, “All I could see was the fog.  I think if I could’ve seen the shore, I would’ve made it!”

Friend, don’ t give up! The finish may be only strokes away. God may at this moment be lifting His hand to signal Gabriel to grab the trumpet. The shore may be closer than you think. Stay at it.  Stay in the race.  And don’t give up!

from Facing Your Giants

Our Daily Bread — Snapping, Snarling Thoughts

Our Daily Bread

Psalm 59

You have been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble. —Psalm 59:16

Many years ago, my father and I hiked through Big Bend in Texas. It’s a national park now, but in those days it was rough country.

One night we were rolling out our sleeping bags when a couple with a dog asked if they could camp nearby. We welcomed their company and turned in for the night. They tethered their dog to a stake beside their tent.

Some hours later my father nudged me awake and turned his flashlight into the darkness. Illuminated by the light, we saw pairs of yellow eyes peering out of the shadows. A pack of snapping and snarling coyotes were closing in on the dog. Although we chased them off and our neighbors put the dog in their tent, we slept fitfully.

I think of that night when I read Psalm 59 and David’s twice-repeated imagery: “At evening they return, they growl like a dog” (vv.6,14). David was thinking of Saul’s army that was closing in on him. I think, however, of the thoughts that return to menace us. They come back at nightfall, snapping and snarling: “You’re stupid.” “You’re a failure.” “You’re useless.” “Who needs you?”

When we have such thoughts, we can revel in God’s unconditional, unending love. His steady devotion is our refuge in the dark night of self-doubt and fear (v.16). —David Roper

Dear Lord, I am so thankful that You love me

unconditionally. Please chase away destructive thoughts

that keep returning to take away my confidence in You

and Your work in me. I want to rest in You and Your love.

Knowing that God loves us can dispel doubt.

Bible in a year: Psalms 57-59; Romans 4

Max Lucado – Let the Father Guide You

Max Lucado

Are you watching a world out of control and don’t know what to do?  Stand back and let the Father guide you!

I remember a time when I was about nine years old.  My father and I were battling a storm in a fishing boat, honestly wondering if we’d make it back to shore. The boat was small, the waves were high, the sky rumbled, the lightening zigzagged. . . As dad tried for shore, wave after wave picked us up and slapped us down. I looked for the coast, for the sun, even for other boats. I saw only waves—everything was frightening. There was only one reassuring sight, the face of my father. Right then I made a decision. I quit looking at the storm and looked only at my father.

God wants us to do the same. What good does it do to focus on the storm anyway?  Focus your eyes on Him.

Charles Spurgeon – Continental tour H4

CharlesSpurgeon

Suggested Reading: Job 38:22-30

We went up the Mer de Glace on mules. I had the great satisfaction of hearing three or four avalanches come rolling down like thunder. In descending, I was alone and in front, I sat down and mused, but I soon sprang up, for I thought the avalanche was coming right on me, there was such a tremendous noise and rushing. We crossed many places where the snow, in rushing down from the top, had swept away every tree and every stone, and left nothing but the stumps of the trees, and a kind of slide from the top of the mountain to the very valley. What extraordinary works of God there are to be seen here! We have no idea of what God is. As I went among these valleys, I felt like a little creeping insect, wondering what the world could be, but having no idea of its greatness. I sank lower and lower, and growing smaller and smaller, while my soul kept crying out “Great God, how infinite art thou! What worthless worms are we!”

For meditation: (Spurgeon): If you cannot travel, remember this sweet verse:-

“But in his looks a glory stands,

The noblest labour of thine hands;”

Get a view of Christ, and you have seen more than mountains, cascades, and valleys, and seas can ever show you. Thunders may bring their sublimest uproar, and lightnings their awful glory; earth may give its beauty, and stars their brightness; but all these put together can never rival HIM;

“God in the person of his Son,

Has all his mightiest works outdone.”

Part of nos. 331-332

23 July

Alistair Begg – Climbing a Mountain

Alistair Begg

Get you up to a high mountain.  Isaiah 40:9

Our knowledge of Christ is somewhat like climbing one of the mountains in Wales. When you are at the base you see only a little: the mountain itself appears to be only half as high as it really is. Confined in a little valley, you discover scarcely anything but the rippling brooks as they descend into the stream at the foot of the mountain. Climb the first rising knoll, and the valley lengthens and widens beneath your feet. Go higher, and you see the country for four or five miles around, and you are delighted with the widening prospect. Higher still, and the scene enlarges; until at last, when you are on the summit and look east, west, north, and south, you see almost all of England lying before you. There is a forest in some distant county, perhaps two hundred miles away, and here the sea, and there a shining river and the smoking chimneys of a manufacturing town, or the masts of the ships in a busy port. All these things please and delight you, and you say, “I could not have imagined that so much could be seen at this elevation.”

Now, the Christian life is of the same order. When we first believe in Christ, we see only a little of Him. The higher we climb, the more we discover of His beauty. But who has ever gained the summit? Who has known all the heights and depths of the love of Christ that passes knowledge? When Paul had grown old and was sitting gray-haired and shivering in a dungeon in Rome, he was able to say with greater emphasis than we can, “I know whom I have believed,”1 for each experience had been like the climbing of a hill, each trial had been like ascending another summit, and his death seemed like gaining the top of the mountain, from which he could see the whole panorama of the faithfulness and love of Him to whom he had committed his soul. Get up, dear friend, into a high mountain.

1 – 2 Timothy 1:12

 

Joyce Meyer – What’s the Rush

 

To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven. —Ecclesiastes 3:1

Much of the world is in a hurry, always rushing, yet very few people even know where they are going in life. If we want to be at peace with ourselves and enjoy life, we must stop rushing all the time. People rush to get to yet another event that has no real meaning for them or that they really don’t even want to attend. Hurry is the pace of the twenty-first century. Rushing has become a disease of epidemic proportions.We hurry so much, we finally come to the place where we cannot slow down.

I can remember the days when I worked so hard and hurried so much that even if I took a vacation, it was almost over by the time I geared down enough to rest. Hurry was definitely one of the “peace stealers” in my life and still can be, if I do not stay alert to its pressure. Life is too precious to rush through it. I find at times that a day has gone by in a blur. At the conclusion of it, I know I was very busy all day, yet I cannot really remem¬ber enjoying much, if any, of it. I have committed to learn to do things in God’s rhythm, not the world’s pace.

Jesus was never in a hurry when He was here on earth, and God is absolutely not in a hurry now. Ecclesiastes 3:1 states, “there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven.” We should let each thing in our lives have its season and realize we can enjoy that season without rushing into the next one.