The Last Sunday in March

We had a potluck after church today but I didn't stay. I had lots of reasons for not staying but I think the predominant one was because I had thought the potluck was for dinner tonight, not lunch today. So I didn't bring anything with me and to be truthful I had nothing to bring even if I hadn't made that mistake but that's beside the point. I hadn't told Michael I would be late. I had asked him yesterday if he wanted to go to the potluck tonight and I didn't want to worry him by being a couple hours late getting home from Church today. I really wanted to stay and help clean up afterward but I just kept thinking about Michael being worried. I should have thought to have had someone call him for me but I'm so used to not using the telephone because of my hearing loss that that option never even entered my mind. Well, maybe I'll do better next time. I just never thought about calling him. Even so, if I'd thought of it I could have come home and told him and then gone back being as how we're just a stone's throw from church. Shows I really wasn't thinking. But the Lord knows where my heart was. He knows I really wanted to stay and help. Sometimes I just don't think! Which brings me to the question of why the Lord didn't prompt me to have someone call. I don't have any answers; I just wonder what possible reason the Lord would have for not prompting me to call or come home and then go back. Any takers on figuring out the answer to that question??

It's beautiful outside today. Bright and sunny with lots of white puffy clouds floating around in the azure blue sky. But the breeze is chilly if you stand out in it. Yesterday had stayed overcast and cold all day. My Redbud is starting to leaf out in the corner of the yard and the oak out front that never loses its dry, brown leaves all winter is now beginning to drop them in the wind, making way for the new leaves of spring that come out in that luminous green color, glowing from within. My Easter lily in the corner by the front door now has 3 flowers blooming. Would have been two more if the wind hadn't blown the plant over and ruined the first blossom and the bud that would have blossomed next. There were 13 buds on the plant when Cathie gave it to me but now I have to make do with just 11 buds! That's a lot of flowers (buds?) for one plant to put out. These aren't cut flowers so the buds should all blossom out, shouldn't they? I'm thinking they will all eventually make it to full bloom. It would be breath-taking if they were all to bloom at the same time. Yes, it's spring and I love it!

I too want to go through positive changes. I want to make good use of this spring also. I want the Lord to teach me not only to believe on Him but to abide in Him as well; to take His cross not only as the ground of my pardon but also the law of my life! When I am crucified with Him, I enter into the closest fellowship with Himself. I want Him to teach me to yield myself wholly and singularly to Him.

I think of faith; ever changing like seasons. But faith, above all, is the ceasing of my own efforts on behalf of self along with all other dependencies I may have developed. Faith is my confessed helplessness casting itself upon God's promise and claiming its fulfillment. Faith is the putting off of myself quietly into God's hands for Him to do His work.

When Christ came in my place, He remained what He was, the Beloved of the Father; but in His fellowship with me He shared my curse and died my death. I am still what I was by nature, the accursed one who deserves to die. But united to Him, I share His blessing and receive His life. When He came to be one with me He could not avoid the cross and as I seek to be one with Him, I cannot avoid the cross either, for nowhere but on the cross are life and deliverance to be found. I must take His cross as my own. I must be crucified with Him. It is as I abide daily, deeply, in Jesus the Crucified One, that I shall taste the sweetness of His love, the power of His life, and the completeness of His salvation. I must yield myself to Him in an undivided surrender, begging to be admitted into an ever-closer fellowship and conformity to His death ... and His life. Spring is a time of renewal. The trees, grasses, and flowers all come together in newness to form something fresh and delicate, just as our lives and our faith go through similar seasons of change. Everything comes down to the cross, really; will I lay my life at the foot of the cross? Will I become more of what God wants me to become? Then I must yield. I must give up and give out that which makes me who and what I am so that I may have room for more of who the Lord is. As I give myself wholly to Christ, I find the power to take Him wholly for myself; and as I lose myself and all I have for Him, He takes me wholly for Himself and gives Himself wholly to me.