Don’t freak out on me now. No, this isn’t Monday morning, just a Monday morning blog post from me. I have two reasons for posting this now: first, the subject matter of the devo post is too important to treat lightly–Jesus’s second coming; and second, my life is so busy with life at the moment this is all I can come up with on my self-imposed deadline.
A lot of my blogging buddies spend the end of each year and beginning of the next, that became the present while they were living–you see, my life isn’t the only one that gets crazy busy at times–coming up with a word from God for them to live by for the next twelve months. Me, personally, I have a whole dictionary of words for me to live my life by according to God’s guidelines. Actually I don’t use a dictionary for this method but God’s Word, the Bible.
Last weekend I spent time in east Texas studying 2 Peter under the guidance of Michael Easley. Peter gives a list of steps we’re to follow in our Christian walk to becoming more like Jesus. My life seems to be stuck on the perseverance step. Has been for quite a while.
So, the word from God for me to live by this year is PERSEVERE.
I’m not too comfortable with the fact that two-thirds of that word is “severe.” I can’t say it surprises me at the moment either. Getting off this step will be a blessing if it ever happens.
A little backstory for this post is in order. I’m typing this from my room at the Maranatha Christian Writers’ Conference near Muskegon, Michigan. 1,109 miles from my apartment in Plano, Texas. God has pulled a LOT of strings to get me here right now. I won’t go into them here.
I knew the journey here was going to be rough. I just didn’t have any guess as to how rough. The four nights before I left to drive here were spent with very little sleep. That’s not the way I wanted to prepare for this event. I trust God has His plans though.
My life as a truck driver has prepared me for long stints on the road with little sleep. So I persevered to my destination.
I’ve been praying for an Indian Summer when I got here. What I received was an INDIAN SUMMER. The fall color show began in southern Illinois and has only gotten better.
When someone mentions an orange tree to a person in south Texas they think of a tree that produces oranges as their fruit. An orange tree in Michigan in October has a whole nuther definition–as you can see in this photo.
I’m so glad I persevered to get back to my roots. The self-imposed whiplash from trying to view all the colors was totally expected. I did this every October when I lived here full time, too.
Maranatha is right on Lake Michigan. The main building aren’t, but a short walk is all it took to find that massive body of fresh water. The flock of seagulls reminded me to keep my hat on. For some reason they appeared to have a dislike for me. That or they liked to use me as target practice from the sky. I’m hoping I’m enough generations removed from those birds that these birds don’t recognize me at all. We’ll see.
God is so good at giving breaks to those of us under perseverance. Mine came on the beach Thursday morning before the conference began. I used my phone to record one minute of waves and blue skies with fluffy clouds.
No music with this video. The waves make their own song. Now I’m charged for the coming days of relaxing, learning, networking and persevering.
Keep smiling. Wade
