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

Back to School

Well, after four years away from school counseling, I have decided to return. Yes, I'm keeping my private practice in counseling. I will be reducing the number of clients that I see on a weekly basis in order to work 20 hours a week as a school counselor at Rockford Christian Elementary School. This comes in the midst of conversations that I have been having with God about desire. In fact, pursuing this position kind of started those conversations. My good friend Mackenzie, who works in the business office at RCS, told me about the position innocently enough. She wanted me to have the information about the position in case I had any counselor friends who might be interested in applying. What neither she nor I could have known, was how desire would stir in my heart as soon as she started to describe it to me. There are things that I have come to absolutely love in private practice counseling. I love being my own boss, setting my own hours and having complete freedom over...
1 comment
Read more

Wow, it’s March already

I haven’t written anything during the whole month of February. I thought about writing several different things, but never got around to it. I had ideas and I made plans. Unfortunately, they were never realized. It has been a busy month. I got engaged two weeks ago. Ben did an amazing job of surprising me by proposing at 9 PM on a Thursday night, when I thought we were going outside to start my car so I could go home. We stood on the exact spot where we first met in October of 2010, outside what was the barn at Anderson Organic farm, and remembered that first day. He offered me a chocolate, I discovered a ring hidden in the box, he got down on one knee and there were fireworks. (Yes, actual fireworks!) So, we’re getting married in September and I’m excited, but also overwhelmed by all the change and planning. In addition to such a significant change in my personal life, I’m preparing to make some major changes in my professional life. I will continue counseling because I lo...
1 comment
Read more