The Small Branch

  I live in the woods.   There is a ring of grass around my house and then woods, including lots of weeds.   There are cacti around, which seems odd based on the climate and makes me wonder if someone dumped them out at one time.   There are also some weeds that have weird silvery leaves with spikes on the edges.   Today, I looked out of my window and one of the cacti has a beautiful yellow flower on top.   The spiky weed just a few feet away has a lovely purple bloom.   Isn’t it amazing how something so harsh, even painful, can have beauty come from it?   I am reading a book of Charles Spurgeon’s sermons from the book of Job (I’ll get to a book review on it when I finish).  Job suffered a lot and not because of anything he did or didn’t do.  Sometimes life is just hard.  Sometimes, God allows us to suffer so that we will have all the extra and unnecessary stuff stripped away and He can bless us with better.   That’s wh...

  This morning I was reading in Luke chapter 7, about Simon the Pharisee and the “sinful woman” and it hit me.   I have been struggling with pride my whole life, most of us do, I guess, but the last year or so it has been more and more obvious to me.   Have you ever noticed how much more we see our sin as we get to know the Father better?   Anyway, it hit me that I am, in many ways, a Pharisee.   I often think that my idea of how things should be is actually the way things should be.   As I was answering the questions in my study book, it became clear.   Simon was looking at the outside of a person, only her past actions, her clothes, her situation, etc.   How many times do I do that?   I was raised in a Christian home, but it was also clear that being a “successful, upper middle class American” was equally important and people were definitely judged by that standard.   I have worked in a private Christian school where students were ma...

  Have you ever noticed that it is the transition periods in life that seem to be the most difficult to navigate?   Maybe I think that because I am in one of those periods.   My kids are 22, 20, 17, and 15.   Only the youngest is still homeschooling and, while three of them still live at home, they all are very busy with their own lives.   This is a transition time for me.   I’m moving from full time homeschool mom to empty nester.   The big question for me is - what do I do with my moments?   On the one hand, I need to be home.   I still need to clean house, do laundry (although a lot less), make meals (anywhere from 2 to 10 or more people eat dinner at my house each night), keep up with the budget, etc.   I also still need to be there when my high schooler has questions or needs me to correct papers for her.   Everyone in my family still has the “Mom is able to drop everything and do what I need her to right that moment” attitud...

  121   (Biblical text in italics)   Compare this Psalm to Psalm 91 1 I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; From where shall my help come? 2 My help comes from Yahweh, Our help comes from the Lord through   His Word, His people (see Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, 2 Corinthians 1:10-11, and 1 Thessalonians 5:14), His Spirit, even His   arranging circumstances.  It does not always come in the form of a miraculous interventions.  Sometimes (often) we stay in the trial, but God gives   us what it takes to get to the other side of it.  God knows, better than we do, how these trials sanctify us and draw us closer to Him.  Who made heaven and earth.   The Lord is Creator and Sustainer (see Colossians 1:15-17) 3 He will not allow your foot to stumble; He who keeps you will not slumber.   This is unlike human guards who will fail because they must sleep. 4 Behold, He who keeps Israel Will not slumber and...

How blessed are those whose way is blameless, Who walk in the law of Yahweh. How blessed are those who observe His testimonies, They seek Him with all their heart. They also do not work unrighteousness; They walk in His ways. You have commanded us , To keep Your precepts diligently.   Oh may my ways be established To keep Your statutes!   Then I shall not be ashamed When I look upon all Your commandments. I shall give thanks to You with uprightness of heart, When I learn Your righteous judgments. I shall keep Your statutes; Do not forsake me utterly!

The dictionary defines a prepper as , “a person who believes a catastrophic disaster or emergency is likely to occur in the future and makes active preparations for it, typically by stockpiling food, ammunition , and other supplies. "there's no agreement among preppers about what disaster is most imminent”.” So, basically, preppers are preparing for something that might happen in ways that might help.  But what about something that is a sure thing?  Do we prepare for that?  Unfortunately, most do not.  Jesus coming again to judge the world is a SURE THING.  It will DEFINITELY happen.  And repenting and believing in Jesus is the only thing that will save us.  And not believing something will happen doesn’t make it not happen. We need to prepare for the sure thing and not be anxious about tomorrow (Matthew 6:25-34).  Sure, some common sense preparedness is a good idea.  Look at COVID.  Everything shut down, so we needed to hav...

  As I have struggled through some difficult things in the past year or so (and continue to struggle), I have often sought the council people I consider to be godly and wise.   While I have gotten some help from them, I have noticed something that makes me ponder.   I have heard a lot of phrases like, “I can’t believe a God of righteousness would do that,”   “Logically, it has to be this way,”   “I don’t think . . . ,”   “I feel . . . ,” and more.   Some of these phrases have come out of my own mouth.   Lately, I have been rethinking them, though.   Does it really matter what I think, feel, or reason to be true?  I’m not sure it does.  What really matters is what God thinks, feels, and reasons to be true.  And we find that in His Word.  That means that, if we believe something, we had better be able to back it up with Scripture.  It also means that if we believe something, even if we have believed it and been tau...

  Proverbs 1:7 says,   “The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge; Ignorant fools despise wisdom and discipline.” (LSB) Let’s break this verse down (I’m using the BLB App and the dictionary as references.  You can also find this at www.blueletterbible.org ). “The fear” - fear of God, reverence, piety (the quality of being religious or reverent); respect; fear, terror, awesome or terrifying thing; revered “of Yahweh” - Jehovah - the existing One; self-existent or eternal One; “I am Who I am”; the personal name of God “is the beginning” - first, best, beginning, chief; the first in place, time, order or rank, first fruits; principal thing “of knowledge” - knowledge, perception, skill, discernment, understanding, wisdom, cunning; in highest sense, knowledge of God (including obedience) “Ignorant fools” - one who despises wisdom; of one who mocks when guilty; of one who is quarrelsome; of one who is licentious (promiscuous and unprincipled in sexual matte...

  The story of the 10 Minas in Luke 19 tells of a master who goes away, leaving his servants with some of his money to manage.   I have always thought about this story (and the similar on in Matthew 25) as teaching me to use what God has given me (like talents, abilities, and resources) wisely in big ways, but for some reason, when I heard a sermon about this passage recently, the smaller things grabbed my attention.   In the middle of verse 17, this phrase stood out to me: “because you have been faithful in a very little thing,” and I have been pondering it since that Sunday.   What does it mean to be faithful in a very little thing?  Let me give you a little background so you can understand where I am coming from.  I have four children whom I have stayed home with and even homeschooled for most of their childhood.  At this point, only one is still in high school.  Even though three of them live at home, they all three have jobs and one is a...

  This year, I am participating in the G3 reading challenge (you can find this challenge HERE ).   One of the books that I have read so far is Edward T. Welch’s When People are Big and God is Small .   (I definitely recommend this book and the whole reading challenge in general.)   One of the main points of this book is that when people have a proper fear of the Lord, then we will fear nothing else.   Since fear of man is something I struggle with, I decided to do some looking into fear of the Lord and share my findings with you. Several times in Leviticus, we are commanded to fear the Lord (Leviticus 19:14, 31; 25:17, 36, 43; etc.).  Deuteronomy 6:13 says, “Yahweh your God you shall fear; and Him you shall serve; and by His name you shall swear,” and verse 24 says, “So Yahweh commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Yahweh our God for our good all our days and for our survival, as it is today.”  Deuteronomy 10:20 says, “Yahweh your God yo...

  When my youngest child was about two years old, she had a cute habit to get our attention.   She is the youngest of four kids, all within seven years of each other.   There was a lot of chaos in our home, as they were all with me all day, every day, so she didn’t get a lot of one on one attention at this point of her life.   When she wanted my attention, she would get me to pick her up and, while my head was on the swivel dealing with everyone else, she would take her little hands and put them on my cheeks to turn my face to her.   She would then look at me, eye to eye, and say something to the effect of, “Listen to me, Mommy.”   It was really cute and definitely got my attention.   Now my kids are older, teens and adults, and I am still feeling like a cat running to the latest shiny object.  Now though, it feels more like God is the One taking my face in His hands and saying, “Listen to me, little one.”  There are so many distractions...

  We have been talking a lot about encouraging the men in our church to lead their families Biblically, including discipling them.  As we have discussed this, one thing I keep thinking about is how much we have disrespected men in the last several decades.  It is no wonder they don’t want to lead.  They are continually told they are chauvinist or domineering if they try.  There are even women who will get angry with a man for opening the door for her.  Our culture does not want strong, godly men.   But how does that play out in my own home?  I definitely do not consider myself a feminist.  I am very traditional in my views of gender roles.  But does that show itself in my attitude and actions towards my husband, or have I been more influenced by the culture than I thought?  Lately, I am convicted that the later is true.  1 Peter 3:1-4 says, “In the same way, you wives, be subject to your own husbands so that even if any o...

  There are numerous verses in the Bible, especially in Proverbs, about the sinfulness of laziness.   It is easy to see that God does not want us to be lazy, that laziness is sin.   Laziness is a hard thing for me.   Where does it stem from?   Yes, my flesh and my sin nature, but it is often more complex than that.   My biggest trouble is that I see things that need to be done but get overwhelmed because of how many things there are to do, or the magnitude or difficulty of the job, or the many unknowns in how to do the job, or the fact that, even if I do the job well, it will need to be done again the next day.   These feelings of being overwhelmed seem to “shut down” my system.   Sometimes, I struggle because I’m just waiting for someone to tell me what to do.   I am almost positive that this stems from growing up in the shadows of American education.   Teachers are there to tell you what to think and when to think it and what to do a...

 Deuteronomy 23-34 (These are my notes from my reading.) If you knew you were about to die, what would your last words be?  The end of Deuteronomy gives us Moses' last words.  God tells him that he is not going with the people, that he is about to die.  So Moses continues to remind them of the Law.  He gives them an exercise of blessing and cursing and stone memorials when they cross the Jordan to remind them why they are there.  He mediates a covenant between Israel and God while they are in Moab.  Moses even tells them that he knows they will break the covenant and suffer all the curses God has pronounced for disobedience.  But he also encourages them with what will happen when they return to the Lord even while exiled in foreign lands.  Moses reminds them that they are chosen by God, for God, because of God and God is faithful even when we are not.  Moses challenges the people to choose life by choosing God and being obedient, even kn...

 Deuteronomy 10-22 (These are my notes from my reading.)  Moses continues the reminders for the people, making sure they remember that, above all, they must love and serve God alone.  God has chosen Israel to be His own people.  He chose them because of who He is - "the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God" (10:17).  While we cannot expect our lives to be a cakewalk just because we obey God, He does promise the Israelites rewards for obedience and punishments for disobedience.  The trouble they have is their inability to obey. All humans are born with a sin nature that makes us slaves to sin.  We can only obey God when we repent and believe in Jesus and His finished work on the cross.  Only then are we capable of obedience to all these laws Moses reminds the people of.  Only then do we obey out of right motives - love and respect for God.  What happens when people continually disobey?  This i...

 Deuteronomy 1-9 (these are my notes from my reading)  Reminders.  We all need them.  A note on our calendar about a birthday or anniversary.  A list of instructions to accomplish something.  Recipes for our favorite meal.  To do lists.  Address books.  On and on we could list reminders in our lives.  None of us have perfect memories and, even if we did have a perfect memory, we wouldn't act on everything we remember perfectly.  Especially after 40 years.  Most of Deuteronomy is a reminder.  Moses makes sure the generation that were children when the Law was given, when Israel first came to the promised land's borders, when God punished them, that these now adults and leaders of Israel remember what God has done and what He has said.  Moses reminds them of their parents' sin when God wanted them to enter the promised land.  He reminds them of the consequences of that sin and their wanderings in the wilderness. ...

 Numbers 31-36 (These are my notes from my reading.)  Sometimes it is hard to read Scripture.  We read about war and ruthless killing, but we must always keep in mind the sovereignty of God.  The Midianites had been given years of chances to surrender to the One True God.  They were not killed randomly or even because of their land.  They were killed because of their sin.  God used Israel to punish the Midianites for their sin.  Their time was done.  They no longer had a chance to repent.  We don't know how or why God chooses that time, but it is His  choice, not ours.  We don't have to understand His ways, we can't (Isaiah 55:8).  We must ruthlessly eliminate sin from our lives.  Here, this is done by killing all the men and the women who are no longer innocent.  There are sacrifices to God for atonement and to give Him glory.  We must "kill" relationships that lead us to sin.  We must "kill" circumsta...

 Numbers 16-30 (These are my notes from my reading.)  Leadership can be a lonely place.  When God chooses leaders, He doesn't promise them that everyone will willingly follow them.  The important thing to remember is that God  is the leader.  He may choose people to lead under Him, but He is in charge.  When we rebel against God's chosen leaders, we are really rebelling against God.  When we question the leaders, thinking we know best, we are questioning God.  This means that, if we have a problem with a leader, we need to go to God with it so that He can show us what, if anything we should do.  But we have to be willing to be shown that we are wrong and we just need to follow.  God also takes care of the leaders He places over His people.  He shows the people His choice and provides for all their needs.  God expects His leaders to respect Him and to show the people that He is holy.  Leaders are held to a higher stand...

 Numbers 1-15 (These are my notes from my reading.) (1-4) God continues to set up an orderly nation.  The warriors are numbered and the camp set up in an orderly fashion so that the tabernacle and, therefore, God, is at the center of Israel and is guarded well.  The Levites are also numbered and assigned specific duties.  They are dedicated to God and represent the firstborn of the nation, given to God because of the Passover and because the first of everything should be given to God. (5-10) Laws are reiterated and new laws given.  Tests and punishments are set out so that the people can judge guilt or innocence.  Women are protected by these tests for adultery so that their husbands cannot just make accusations and be rid of them.  Every tribe gives an offering to the Lord for the tabernacle and the priests to use.  There are rules for the lamps and trumpets made for signaling the camp. (11-12) The Israelites, like most humans, are huge complaine...