Reflections

As the new year starts, I’ve spent many a minute reflecting on what all happened last year and how fast it all went – have you?

Reflecting, meditating, thinking about – I think some of us do a lot of that, especially as we age. 

2 Timothy 2:7(NIV) Paul says to Timothy, “Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give your insight into all this.” 

If I reflect – look at what the Bible is saying, I believe that God will speak to me through it, as He did for Timothy. 

Meditating is a part of reflecting - part of the dictionary definition of reflecting is “Consideration and evaluation of some subject matter.” That’s basically meditating.  Really thinking about something, picking it apart, analyzing it and having it become a part of you.  

In Joshua 1:8 (NIV) we read  Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. 

Joshua was saying that the people must consider, reflect, meditate on Moses’ teachings – not just to know them, but so that they would be able to do what was instructed by God.

I read something recently that said, “Our brains keep on learning, even when we’re not aware of it.” So maybe there’s hope for us after all.

You may relate to Psalm 119:148 (NIV) where David says,

My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises.

Now that’s interesting.  I know my eyes sometimes stay open, but am I meditating on God’s promises?  I should be.  Do you ever think about a scripture when you can’t go to sleep?  It’s calming, but mostly it’s calming to know that God is awake with you.

I love reading quotes by little kids – I read this letter to God the other day.  Christopher wrote

Dear God, who’s in charge when you are off duty? 

It’s cute, only because we know God is never off duty.  In the late watches of the night, when we’re tired and hurting and can’t go to sleep, when we wake in the morning, on weekdays, on weekends – God is never off duty.  So, we can talk to Him and meditate on the answers in His book. 

I loved this letter to God from Elliott. 

Dear God, I think about You sometimes even when I'm not praying. (Elliott)

Friends aren’t friends only when they make an appointment to visit, they are friends always.  God is our best friend - let’s think about Him – let’s reflect on Him - even when we don’t have our eyes closed, and our hands folded to pray – even when we’re not talking to Him.

To reflect on God is to think about Him, to meditate on Him, and to make Him a part of our every moment because He’s right there – every moment.

Happy New Year

It’s the new year – I hope you all had a nice Christmas, we did for sure.  But this morning I woke up thinking that ..

Even though our world has tried very hard to take Christ out of this season, I expect that not one of us could escape without thinking just even a little bit about the Christ Child, the one who came to earth and was born in a lowly manger.

When I think of the manger, probably a dirty place, probably cold and unpleasant, I’m amazed.

I’m amazed that, as we look at Christmas cards, at the pictures we Christians paint of that tiny baby lying there, they seem so beautiful.  The pictures in our head are the same – when we see Jesus in that stable, He makes it come alive.  He makes it into something more than it was.

And in the same way Christians look at the cross of Jesus as something that has worth, not as something the world sees, but as the means for God to show His mighty love for us.  When we look at the man on the cross He makes it into something more than it was.

God does that for us as well.  When He is in our lives, He makes us more than we ever were.  I pray that will be true for each one of us this year, that we’ll let Him make us more.

Love, Diane