Perfect Peace

Well, the kids and I went blueberry picking today with an elderly gentleman in our church. We got four gallons...I was impressed with the kids...they picked till the buckets were finished ...no complaining. We chatted, laughed, and realized when the buckets were nearly full, that no one had even eaten one yet!! I gave Isaac one and he was hooked. I wish I would've had my camera....he was shoving them in by the handfuls. We came home and I made 7.5 pints of blueberry freezer jam and put up lots of 1 cup bags to use this winter in cobblers, sauces, pies, etc. While I was working, I started contemplating... *grin*...

The verse "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee" came to mind. I was thinking that so many times we ( I ) get caught up in thought processes that are detrimental to our happiness. It's like you're going along perfectly content and you figuratively stump your toe on something that smarts and starts you to fussin'....Could be you noticed again that one of your possessions isn't "up to par" with a neighbor's...take my van for instance. It's a '95 (gasp)...can you believe that???? I gets me from A to B...it has an ac...it's not even rusty...but every now and then I take my eyes off what matters, and I start looking around. Now Darren and I have had this discussion too many times to count. We decide we're going to get a new van. We look around...contemplate makes and models ...go back and forth over the color...and if we talk about it long enough, we always come back to "ah well, ours runs and its paid for, why bother adding on a payment when you don't have to?" It is soooooooo tempting to want better things, shinier things, things that show the world we are happening and in the know. It makes it so easy to lose sight and in doing so, lose our contentment. It's not just possessions either...it's something someone said that raises our hackles everytime we think of it; or maybe it's hidden jealousies, insecurities, or resentments. Whatever it is that makes us lose sight of the joy and peace we should have in Him....it's a toe stumper...it makes us look down instead of up.

I've just finished a book entitled "Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret"....such a good book. He was a missionary to China in the late 1800s. I continue to be amazed by the life he led...his faith seems so real I felt I could've reached out and grabbed a hold of it. What a beautiful life! While living a life fraught with trials, dangers, and uncertainties, he found perfect peace in God. He came to realize that we don't have to constantly be striving to be close to God....that if we are His children, we abide in Him already! Taylor says "I have striven in vain to rest in him. I'll strive no more. For has not He promised to abide with me - never to leave me, never to fail me?" It reminds me that all these things surrounding us are sooo temporal...of no lasting effect. The toys we have now are but whispers in eternity. It's what lies within us that matters...it is He that can give contentment and perfect peace. Anyway, I was just thinking that I'd love to be able to share my faith the way Hudson Taylor did...to be able to show others in a tangible, daily way that He makes a difference in my life...that He is the light within me that shines outward. I'd like for others to know that He gives me peace and joy and contentment. I gotta watch out for those toe stumpers :)