Skip to main content

31 Days to Keep a Tender Heart: October 18

 
Always be joyful. Keep on praying. No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. I Thessalonians 5:16-18
Ann Voskamp quoted this passage in her blog recently. Then, I read it in my one-year Bible for October 12. Seeing it twice within a week caught my attention.
Verse 16 is: Always be joyful.
This sounds like a command to me and I don’t think God would command us to do something we can’t do. If He tells me to always be joyful, then I believe that it is always possible for me to be joyful and that this is what God desires for me.
Verse 17 is: Keep on praying.
I hear another command. And, it follows the first one, which I understand to mean that prayer is related to being joyful. The joy provokes the prayer; the prayer sustains the joy, or both. Either way, I like how God has placed these two directives right next to each other.
Verse 18: No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
No matter what happens, I can be thankful. God’s will for me, as one who belongs to Christ Jesus is that I would be thankful. This stirs my heart to commit to the regular practice of gratitude all over again.
God wants me to be joyful, constant in prayer and thankful. This is what I hear Him say in this passage, “Be joyful, Jody. Be constant in prayer, Jody. Be thankful, Jody.”
Why does God link these three things? I think He is trying to show that they go together. When I practice gratitude through prayer in every season and situation, I will experience joy in God’s presence. This sounds good to me.
Still Counting Gifts:
·         #558: Tea and coffee in the morning
·         #559: Having the freedom to wear jeans to work
·         #560: A short work day in a quiet building
·         #561: An afternoon adventure with my parents to Galena, IL
·         #562: Fall colors that have remained despite wind and rain
·         #563: New smart wool socks!
·         #564: Window shopping
·         #565: An Italian dinner with two of my favorite people
·         #566: Finding a coffee shop that made espresso drinks right before it closed for the day
·         #567: Laughing hard together
·         #568: Car naps

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

3 weeks ago today

I got married three weeks ago today. I’ve been thinking a lot about our wedding since that day. This was my first week back to work, which meant that I got to talk a lot about that day and show pictures, because everything is still fresh and new and people are anxious to know how it went. I have missed writing. Several times during our honeymoon, I almost grabbed my laptop because I had the urge to write. I never did, but I wanted to. I think that it felt too intimate to record in some ways. And, in others, I was just enjoying being lazy and carefree. I plan to write about what I remember from my wedding. (Maybe even some things from our honeymoon. We shall see…) I don’t know what I will share, but I want to make a record of my memories and experiences from that day. Just three weeks later, but the feelings are less vivid and the mental pictures are less crisp. Fortunately, our photographer did an amazing job and I am thankful that I have those images to remind me....
2 comments
Read more
Dear Me at 16, First, take a deep breath and try to relax. You're not receiving this letter because you are bad or in trouble. To the contrary, I'm writing to you because I care about you and I know that it's hard for you to let others be caring toward you. You feel exposed and vulnerable, wondering if the person will stumble across all those imperfections that you work so hard to hide. You feel afraid of how they might judge you if they knew how needy, fragile and broken you actually are behind your put-together facade. I want to let you know that it's not your fault that you are this way. At least, it's not entirely your fault. Your desire to encourage and help other people is a wonderful, God-given part of your personality that influences you to put yourself in the position of helper. And this is an important part of how God has made you because it relates to the high calling that He has placed on your life to partner with Him in restoring people. Being t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Heart Revival

Hey you guys, It's been almost two years since my last post. What?! I know some of you probably forgot that I even used to do this, but I hope that you're as excited as I am that I'm coming back to blogging. It's a new season and God has been stirring up lots of creativity and courage in me recently. I'm happy to tell you all about it. In case you missed it, I became a mom to sweet Elias last summer. In fact, he is about to turn 1 year old on Monday and I can't believe it! Guys, he is absolutely the sweetest, calmest and most delightful baby you can ever imagine and I still tear up sometimes in gratitude when I remember that he is my little boy. One of my life dreams to be a stay-at-home mama has been partially fulfilled in that I only work three days a week during the school year. I work 2 1/2 days at RCS Elementary School and it is an amazing place. Shortly after I got there, they put me in charge of the two chapel services that happen each week. Gu...
1 comment
Read more