April 16, 2011

Yesterday was a quiet day at school, because all but about 4 students in high school were at the music contest in Maddock.  I don't know how they did, or what it was like for them to drive, because we have a lot of snow.  After school I went to Grandpa Glenns house to get it ready for Dan and Vicki, Dad loaded up National Geographics, until he ran out of boxes.  As I was working I was thinking about the people we have been able to give a home to at that place, the first was Sjostroms, then Dale and Nancy, then Solbergs, Jerry's and now Dan and Vicki, we could see by facebook that they left the farm for the last time yesterday, I know it was a really emotional time for them as a family.  I had visited with Jodi in school and she couldn't talk with out tears, remembering the tears of the rest of the family.

Unlovely Traits


"Hear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy."

-Psalm 86:1

My spiritual battleground is not over a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of port.

It's not in a disco or a movie theater. My spiritual battleground is not a backyard
fence over which I gossip to my neighbor, nor is it a fast car I race past the speed
limit. My paralysis prevents me from reaching for common temptations. That's why
 my spiritual battleground is on the field of my thoughts.

I possess a very unlovely trait: I will waste precious time in idle daydreams. I
 hate it because wasteful fantasies distract me from the real concerns of life,
causing me to feel restless and dissatisfied with the way things are.

I draw comfort, though, knowing that my unlovely traits furnish me with my best
discipline. The very fact that I am ashamed of myself drives me to God. I lie in
 the dust of my self-despair at His feet and find safety and acceptance. My lazy
 thoughts make me contrite and repentant, and I am humbled that I have to come so
often to God for cleansing.

If we are to have power with the Lord, to be dear to Him, if our prayers are to
prevail and if we are to be most useful to Him, we must jerk right-side up those
 wrong and unlovely traits in our lives.

Amy Carmichael has said, "No word can declare with what longings Divine Love waits
until the heart, all weary and sick of itself, turns to its Lord and says, 'Take
 full possession.'"

Lord, I am poor and needy for I am so often overwhelmed by the unlovely traits in
my life. May these things drive me to You, whether it's pride, halfheartedness,
peevish temper, or impurity in thought, word, or deed. Good Lord, hear my prayer,
and in hearing, please forgive.