ThinMint

Perhaps one of the greatest ways we show God we love Him with all our hearts is to trust Him. Back in December, before I was able to get in to see Felix, I shared some commentary regarding trust, which I am re-posting here. No matter how chaotic things get, no matter what your scary is, we can trust God because He is the same, yesterday and today –always. He will take care of us. Take heart! He is our constant. By Peter Enns “I see a huge difference between ‘I believe in a God who cares for me’ and ‘I trust God at this particular moment.’ The first is a bit safer, an article of faith. The latter is unnerving, risky, because I have let go. You’ve all heard of the ‘trust fall.’ There’s a reason they don’t call it a ‘belief fall.’ Belief can reside in our heads. Trust is doing it, risking it. Trust is humility, putting ourselves in the hand of another. Trust requires something of us that belief doesn’t. When God promises Abraham that he will have more offspring than the stars in the sky, translations of the next verse conventionally say that Abraham ‘believed’ God. (Genesis 15:6). Believe isn’t the right word there. Trust is. The Hebrew word is the same one we get ‘amen’ from. Amen is not a social cue that grace is finished and it’s time to eat. It is the final word in the prayer: we’re done talking now, Lord, and we now move to trust. God promised an old man a lot of kids. Abraham trusted God to come through. That is way harder than believing. Believing has wiggle room. Trusting doesn’t. The same thing holds for the gospel. Believing in God, or even having faith in Him, doesn’t cut it. At least the way these words are used today. Beliefs can be collated into a belief system –an intellectual construction of what sorts of things are right to think and not think about God. Followers of Jesus however, are called to do something much harder. Jesus tells a famous story about why those who follow Him need not worry about anything. Don’t fret about how much you have, what you wear, or what you will eat. Don’t worry. Trust. (Matthew 6:25-34). Jesus illustrates the point in what at first blush seems rather off topic, at best marginally helpful. He tells us to consider the grass of the field and the birds of the sky. Look at them, Jesus says. They’re doing just fine and they don’t worry for a second. Of course they don’t worry, Jesus, because they are, if I’m not mistaken, grass and birds. Grass doesn’t have a brain and birds are skittish little things that fly into windows. These things aren’t really relevant, because by definition these things are incapable of worry. And when you put it that way, you can see the profound point –and challenge, of what Jesus is saying: worry should be as impossible for us as it is for grass and birds. His followers, if they get it, should be as incapable of worry as insentient grass and bird-brained birds. ‘Believing in God’ doesn’t get you to that place Jesus is describing here. Belief leaves room for worry. Trust explodes it.”

Read this with current events in mind. God has this. He always has!

Hello Friends! Hope everyone had a lovely weekend. We continue to be particularly busy. More to share on that… another time. Throughout it all though I’ve been thinking about… a lot. Here’s one thread... It’s scary out there. Scary crazy people, scary hot, scary Deep State, scary side effects, scary inflation, scary unknowns… It’s enough to test even the most ardent Faithful!! We need something tangible, right? Something to reassure us, something to re-focus our thoughts, something that will help us through the darker times… Remember Passover. Remember what the Hebrews went through before Passover. They witnessed so much horror happening around them. How many felt helpless? Hopeless? Yet, those who put their faith in God, who trusted Him, were carried through the scary. They were not without hope. We are not without hope. Two parallels we see throughout history: • God does not change (Malachi 3:6); Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). • God gave us commandments for our own good. The greatest of these is to love God with all our heart (Deuteronomy 6:1–7); Jesus said the most important commandment is to love God with all our heart (Mark 12:28–34) Think of/write down all the words that describe God. This is Who He has always been and will continue to be! Our lexicon, culture and technology changes, but He never changes. He is consistent, reliable, involved. God is our constant in the midst of the chaos, the unknowns, the scary. We can trust Him! We are also witnessing horrors all around us. Yet, we are not helpless. We are not without hope. What He did for the Hebrews, He will do for us because He never changes. The players change, the scenery changes, but He is faithful to the Faithful. Our fellow friend CDN NRG reminds us:

🌺 Please share all the good & inspiring, delightful, awesome, beautiful things: stories, memes, music, news, images, bible verses -all the goodness you see!

Hello Sweetest Friends, Patriots, Believers!! I love the questions I've received from some of you, and I've caught some of your interesting commentary, too. The Holy Spirit has been giving me some great stuff! It's just a matter of getting it from my four remaining brain cells to the computer (typing is my preferred method of writing). Super-duper busy on my end the last few days, plus I will be Friday (and it really hasn't been hamster related). Though I collected some good news, I will not have any time to work on that post -so sorry! I love it when you share all the wonderful happenings in your life so please consider doing so in the below post. Y'all make this such a happy, cohesive little community and I just appreciate you so very much 😊 Blessings!

Written By Dirt Road Discussions You need to give yourself more credit. Yes YOU!! Some of you, today, are doubting what you've done to fight this fight. Some of you, today, are wishing you'd stepped up sooner. Pushed back harder. Fought more battles. I'm telling you, you need to give yourself more credit. You're here. You didn't get the vaccine. You stopped wearing the masks. You told your friends and family what you REALLY think. You tried to help them see things too. You might've lost friends. Some of you lost spouses. Some of you haven't spoken to your children in far too long. Some of you haven't spoken to your siblings or parents in far too long. Not because you chose to, but because they left you. They thought you'd lost your mind. That you supported a "racist". That you peddled conspiracy theories. That you were endangering their lives. You've been kicked off platforms. Some of you have lost your jobs or been pushed so hard you had to find new ones. Some of you have been fined, harassed and even assaulted. Yet you're STILL here. You're still here. You're fighting for the truth. Your searching for the truth. You don't care how ugly it is. No subject is off limits for you. All you want to do is know what's true and to be left TF alone to live in your God given freedoms. You pray. Not just for yourself, but for your enemies too. Your heart cries out in pain because you FEEL. You still feel and you see the world suffering. Give yourself credit. You may not have gone to a protest. You may not have called a congressman. You may not have gone to a school board meeting. You may not have sent money to someone in need. But you ARE still here. And you need to know that you matter, and you are still making a difference. Give yourself credit for that. Just don't go back to sleep. Don't tune everything out. Don't get the jab. Don't wear the masks. Stand your ground in the ways you've ALREADY done. You've PROVEN you can do it. Keep doing it. You know you're on the side of truth and guess what? That's God's side. God made it clear that we must always seek what is true. Do you doubt the truth? You know you don't. So don't doubt yourself either. You've got this. We've got this. But most of all, GOD'S got this! Don't give up now. Keep your head up warrior. You've done more than you give yourself credit for.

It never ceases to amaze me how God puts things into our path with the most impeccable timing. Some of our friends shared their grief, their struggles in an above post. Then I saw the below commentary written by Dirt Road Discussions posted in a chat. Take heart, Dear Friends! May his post help comfort you👇🏻

Also… Sometimes you just have to go with the day God gives you. I thought I would be putting my daughter’s new dresser together today then work on the office Procrastination Piles™. I did not plan to get hay today. But, some rain finally came through in the wee hours so I decided by late morning to run some errands while the temps dropped a little bit. Also… Sometimes it’s good for us to be spontaneous. To just go for it, to jump in with both feet, to enjoy the moment we’re presented with. Careful, deliberate planning is necessary. So is spontaneity. Not the reckless kind. The kind that brings you joy when you feel like you’re trudging through the inhibitednesses* of life. Though we might be surprised by a turn of events –even our own actions, God isn’t surprised. He’s ordered our days, our very steps. We should take comfort in this. Maybe let Him handle the worrisome stuff so we can enjoy the small stuff. Even the Small Stuff we didn’t plan on… *See! I just spontaneously made up a new word! Yay, let’s celebrate with a cookie!

“But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In His hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind” - Job 12:7-1

I didn’t even know we needed two Roborovski dwarf hamsters, but here we are! I went in to get hay for Bunny and left with rodents and rodent paraphernalia. Crazy thing is I’ve resisted the pet urge for a decade. Now look at me rockin’ The Pet World again. Now I get to research all about dwarf hamsters. Go me! The hamsters will be looked after by the twins, and in a very strange way, I kinda feel like… a grandma 😳 Why am I sharing this with you? Because there’s nothing more awesomer than God Who is the awesomest showing us His awesomeness in making so many awesome creatures. Just another reason to love Him 😊

Do y’all talk to yourselves? I do my fair share, but I’m starting to suspect that there are conversations happening among the last of my brain cells without me being invited. BRAIN CELL #1 (the Alpha): Hey, I know there’s organizing and stuff happening, plus getting all the kids ready for the new homeschool year, and the twins are starting training for cross country and track & field, Felix has doctor appointments and therapy, then there’s setting up field trips and events for members, helping out some neighbors while they’re traveling, along with official neighborhood business to take care of, then to top it off there’s prepping and writing for fun… BRAIN CELL #2: Ooh, I get so hyperexcited whenever you talk Alpha! I don’t need to sleep! Or think! BRAIN CELL #1: We should get another pet. BRAIN CELL #2: Yes!! That’s the best idea you’ve ever had!!!! I’m totally in!!!!!!! BRAIN CELL #3: Did I close the garage door? BRAIN CELL #4: Mmm… cookies…

Take heart! As the pseudo government continues to push tyrannical decrees, more people will be stirred from their slumber, more people will rise up, more people will ignore these vainglorious despots, and more people will lawfully remove these communist dictators. Take heart! People are rousing because God’s Spirit is moving, beckoning, readying, endowing, investing, enduing, authorizing, covering. God declared. God has won.