Earth Is Crammed With Heaven-Live Barefoot!

 Yesterday as I was going through my "verse of the day" type calendars for the month of May. The one with a focus on mother's sent me to 2 Timothy 1:5 "I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well." Vocabulary and word study is predominantly what my study time is focused on. It has a way of opening up the Word of God and drawing me in as I meditate on its meaning(s). Yesterday, the word for dwell stood out to me.  Let me back up a little to say that there are certain passages of Scripture that take up permanent residence in my mind. I may not have them memorized but the topic and the teaching is there. John 15 contains one of those passages. It's the "abide" chapter, where Jesus tells His disciples (and therefore us) to abide in Him and He will abide in us. Some translations will say "remain".  Whenever I read this verse, I conn...

The Hebrew language always fascinates me with the way it breathes new meaning into old stories, making them new. For the past day or so, the Lord has had me in the early chapters of Genesis. Originally the lesson was on the Hebrew word for "name" being "shem." And how in Hebrew there's the understanding that it isn't just what someone is called, it's a " one word summation of the totality of a person " to quote Chad Bird. In Hebrew thought it was also about prophecy and how whenever a child was given a name, it would reflect their parent's hopes for the child's nature and future destiny. It's interesting the name Noah chose to give his eldest son, was simply "Shem" who was the progenitor of the Semitic people from whom God's chosen people came. Strong's says the name "Shem" is "often associated with the concept of " renown ," reflecting the importance of legacy and reputation in biblical na...

 Monday, April 14, 2025 5:00 a.m. Yesterday I mentioned that the discourse between Moses and the LORD that takes place in Exodus 33:12-34:9 has been lingering in my mind.  A few days ago, I came across an old post from Katie Davis Majors  that referenced 1 Samual 12:20 & 22 "Do not be afraid,” Samuel replied. “You have done all that is evil, yet do not turn away from the Lord with all your heart… for the sake of His great name the Lord will not reject His people, because the Lord was pleased to make you His own." So much is said here, but what caught my attention was the phrase, "for the sake of His great name." It's in Exodus 34 that the LORD tells us His name and expounds on it a bit further than what He had told Moses back in Exodus 3:14-15, "God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the G...

Sunday, April 13, 2025 9:30p.m. The Spirit called me to the exchange that took place between Moses and the LORD in Exodus 33 and 34 , several weeks ago (March 20th) and it has lingered there in the back of my mind ever since. This morning the Unveiling Mercy devotion dealt with the way Moses' face shone after speaking "face to face" with the Lord.  And it was no small thing then, whenever the Instagram account of Ruth de Jesus  made the connection also to this place in Scripture to Romans 3:23. Paul tells us, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." The Greek word is hustereó and it means  to lack , to fall short, to be in need , to fail.    In Exodus 34:6 we read all that we're lacking and all that we're in desperate need of when the LORD proclaims his very nature. He is, "The Lord—the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generatio...

Thursday, April 10, 2025 10:30 a.m. The more and more I read and study God's word the more fascinating I find it, and Him.  Today my Jesus Calling devotion referenced  Psalm 40:2  "He lifted me up from the pit of despair , out of the miry clay; He set my feet upon a rock, and made my footsteps firm."  Because of the conversation I've been having with the Lord in my prayer journal, this verse called to me. Not because of personal despair, but because of intercessory prayer He's called me to offer for others.  The Hebrew language is so intriguing to me. I was thinking today about how often, my time with the Lord and in His Word, feels a little like an Escape Room. I enter into the Word but in order to find the deeper meaning I have to search for clues. There's plenty of surface information, but there's often a deeper hidden meaning, if you take the time to search it out. It's also very multifaceted, having many applications.  I'm learning that the H...

The Lord has been so generous in walking me through so many lessons, that He knew I would soon need on days like today. Today I'm drawing from all of them. Today I'm wrestling with feelings of frustration, disappointment, sadness, disregarded, bitterness, anger. I could go on. The prayer of my heart tonight is Psalm 51:10, that the Lord would see me and do the work of repairing the part of my spirit that is disquieted within me. To make my spirit "steadfast" implies the act of directing or making something ready for a specific purpose . In a theological sense, it often refers to God's sovereign action in establishing His purposes and plans. Hasn't He prepared me for dealing with all of these emotions recently? Isn't He kind and gracious to have given me this as a practice run at applying all these hard lessons? It's almost like an open book test, isn't it? I have to smile even while feeling so heavy hearted. So let me review, what He has taught me....

 Wednesday, April 7, 2025  Today's lesson is a continuation of what the Spirit has been speaking to my heart. Trusting Him and having a willingness to accept whatever He brings my way, with gratitude and to consider viewing it as a growth opportunity. And how the best way to do that is to be in constant conversation with Him. I started the morning, again with Unveiling Mercy , by Chad Bird. Today he briefly referenced part of the lesson from March 28th, how worship is meant to be full-bodied. Today he shows us how it's also full-sensory, as he teached us about the incense burned that represented the prayers of the Israelites. Then he ended with a prayer from P salm 141:2 , "Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice !"  I have a note written in the margin of my Bible at Psalm 141:2 sending me to 2 Chronicles 29 where the Lord convicted me about 2015 whenever I shut the door of my prayer closet in frustratio...

Today I woke up with a terrible migraine. I don't know if it's my new blood pressure medication, the reduced dosage of my thyroid medication, or the cold front that moved through overnight, or quite possibly a combination of any of these things.  I'm also struggling quite a bit more than usual with my stomach. And I just feel much more depleted than normal. So, I missed church. This often causes me to struggle with dogmatic thinking. But the Spirit whispered to me "the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" and I felt a sense of peace.  As I began my morning routine, it was done with sunglasses to ease the pain my eyes felt from the bright light required to see as I brewed my tea and doled out my morning medication.  I eventually made my way to my Bible study desk and the Lord was gracious to meet me there. The feeling is like no other whenever there is just a cohesiveness of thought and insight that connects from one devotion to the next. This morning...