It keeps coming up "eternal!"
Kay, in these last devotions, has challenged me to steer clear of my "joy steelers"! I loved her "sheet" story-- can you all relate? I can see growth as I recall my own "sheet" stories through the years, as God continues to be patient with me each time as I gradually learn how those "joy steelers" are temporal and God is eternal.
God had already brought this to my mind as two weeks ago my husband challenged our Sunday School class, in preparation for our upcoming study of the book of Philippians, to explore the difference between "joy" and "happiness", joy being eternal and happiness being temporal. Both challenges were from the same book, so I enjoyed reading the book of Philippians this week, and marking it as Kay suggested!
And now this week as I am continuing to ponder Christlikeness as my goal and the eternal benefits, I have the awesome privilege of doing so in a most beautiful place -- it has seemed like heaven!
At this very moment I am watching the orange glowing sun, as it sets over the crystal clear bay in the turquoise Caribbean Sea as I sit on the white sand next to the gift of a husband God has given to me! Ben and I both work very hard, play very hard, and minister very hard, and so once a year he is very gracious to whisk us away for a time of rest and relaxation with each other and with our Heavenly Father, which we enjoy very much! Our timeshare takes us to wonderful places and provides a time of refocusing on what is important in life - a great opportunity to differentiate between what is temporal and what is eternal!
God is amazing! He wants more than anything for us to know Him and in knowing Him, we will become more like Him, causing the eternal perspective in this temporal life to not only come into plain view, but to be the very motivator for life!
"This world is not our home -- we're just passing through..." but each one of our stories are being written as we do! So "set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth." Col 3:2
Accepting the challenge to think "eternal"!
Debbie Harris
QUIET TIME AGAIN in SUMMER 10
www.shadowmountain.org
http://blogs.shadowmountain.org/women