Severe Weather Alerts for Springfield, MO… The tornado warning was just canceled.

That’s what woke me up so early.

I lay awake listening to the storm.
Sarah sleeps beside me, her head on my shoulder.
A clap of thunder shakes the room.
Sarah bolts up in fear, ready to run through the darkness.

I grab her,
pulling her to me.
She snuggles up and goes back to sleep.
Comforted, peaceful.

Your God is like that.
He already knows about the storms,
and He’s already holding you.

What is my God the God of?

Mouse over a scripture reference to read it.

He’s the God of all comfort.
2 Cor 1:3-6

He’s the God of my salvation.
Psalm 18:46
Micah 7:7
Habakkuk 3:18

He’s the God of endurance and encouragement.
Romans 15:5

He’s the God of hope.
Romans 15:13

He’s the God of peace.
Romans 15:33
1 Thessalonians 5:23

He’s the God of all grace.
1 Peter 5:10

I’m bookmarking these at ebible.com. Join me.

Speaking of ebible. If you already use it, please add me as a friend. My username is Amy.

If you don’t use ebible yet, leave a comment and I’ll send you an invite.

My last post spoke of surrender. That’s a word that came up a lot while I was at officer basic. On the drive to Jackson, I heard Chris Tomlin’s song Made to Worship as if it were the first time.

“You and I were made to worship,
You and I are called to love,
You and I are forgiven and free.
When you and I embrace surrender,
You and I choose to believe,
You and I will see how we were meant to be”

Embrace Surrender
Those words flowed from the car speakers and gripped my stubborn heart. Embrace?

em·brace
1. To clasp or hold close with the arms, usually as an expression of affection.

I’m supposed to embrace surrender? What? How?

It’s a long post. Click here to read the rest.

Mark 15:9-15 tells about when Jesus was brought before Pilate:

“Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate, knowing it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.

“What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked them.

“Crucify him!” they shouted.

“Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.
But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”

Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

Pilate knew that Jesus was innocent. But, “wanting to satisfy the crowd,” he handed him over to be crucified.

Wanting to Satisfy the Crowd…

Wow. What have you done just to satisfy the “crowd?”

As the door opened, the sour smell of spoiled milk drifted out of the vehicle and gripped our throats. Jeremiah pulled his shirt over his nose. Sarah’s eyes started to water.

Someone spilled milk.

“Who spilled the milk in the truck?” “Sarah spilled the milk?” “Not me.” “Yes you.” “Not me.” “Then who? Who spilled the milk in the SUV?” “Jeremiah spilled the milk…” “Not me!”

The smell was terrible, we rolled down the windows and drove to church.

Joel and Jeremiah took the truck to the car wash on a mission to kill the horrific sour milk odor.

When they returned, the guys laughed and accused me saying the milk had been spilled on the carpet under my seat. Mommy had spilled the milk. Joel kept teasing me about it. Mentioning that it had taken them two hours to clean up the mess.

I told him he shouldn’t give me so much trouble about spending two hours cleaning up my mess when we have to spend years cleaning up his mess… Somehow that wasn’t so funny.
—
Sarah sat on the bed beside me as I read the Bible. Jeremiah ran up to Sarah and whacked her on the head with a balloon. “Why Did You Do That?” Jeremiah gave his reason, “She looked at my dominoes when we were playing a game in Springfield!” That was three months ago. I lectured Jeremiah about forgiveness and returned to my reading.
—
Matthew 18:21-35

Peter asks Jesus, “How many times do I have to forgive someone who sins against me?”

Jesus tells a story about an unmerciful servant. A king wants to settle some debts. He calls his servant who owes him a ton of money. The servant begs for mercy and receives it. His master canceled the debt.

Later, the servant finds one of his coworkers who owes him a little money. He chokes the guy and demands payment. The coworker asks for mercy but receives none. The unmerciful servant has him thrown in jail.

The king hears about this. And he is ticked off. He says, “You wicked servant, I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?”

He put the servant in jail, ordering that he be tortured until he can pay back everything.

Then Jesus said, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
—

Ouch. The events of the day ran through my mind. Spilled Milk. Balloons in the face. Cheating at dominoes. A lecture about forgiveness…

I shouldn’t have said that to Joel. It wasn’t funny. It was cruel and unforgiving. My attitude smelled worse than spoiled milk in an SUV.
—
Is there someone you need to forgive today?

I’ve fallen several days behind in my Bible reading program. The moving and our new living arrangements make it difficult to read so much each day. [About 12 pages a day are required. 45 minutes to an hour of uninterupted reading. We live in one room, I don't get 1 minute of uninterupted anything.] Constant distractions have me reading the same sentence over and over and over. Isaiah isn’t exactly easy reading, so that made me fall even further behind.

I started taking notes here to help me get through a big chunk of reading tonight. Nothing too fancy written by me, but the verses are definitely worth reading

Alright! It’s day 48 in my Bible in 90 days reading plan.

That means I’m reading Ecclesiastes. You’d think all the talk of meaninglessness and chasing after the wind would be depressing. But not today. It’s kind of comforting.

“What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.”
-Ecc 1:9

Sometimes our problems seem like such a big deal. But all of these things have happened before. And they’ll happen again. How about a little perspective?

—

Yesterday, I found another surprisingly comforting thought. We’re dust.

“As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;

for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.”
-Psalm 103:13-14

Ahhh… God’s compassion. He made me, he’s patient. He knows I’m dust.

—

Slightly concerned about our recent lifestyle changes… this verse helps:

“Better one handful with tranquillity
than two handfuls with toil
and chasing after the wind.”
- Ecc 4:6

Better a microwave and a mini fridge with tranquillity
than a big house with toil
and constant cleaning.