Faithfulness and Some Good Times--Days 77 and 78

We enjoyed ourself Saturday at Rick's place. I don't get to see too many of those guys anymore, but it's always good to catch up a bit. We played some volleyball and the kids swam for quite a while. I swam only because Noah really wanted to get in the water. His favorite word right now seems to be "why". "Noah, I can't let you go." "Why?" "You could get hurt." "Why, Daddy? Why?" I feel compelled to answer his questions even though I know he can't really understand most of the time and probably really doesn't care. He just wants to swim around. Gabrielle took advantage of my time in the pool and had me throw her up in the air a few times. The kids always love that and Gabrielle is still small enough where she gets some pretty good air time.

Sundays almost always start good now that we go to church in the morning. Today, the fruit of the spirit he talked about was faithfulness. The sermon didn't seem to have the same brevity that the earlier sermons on goodness, kindness, patience, joyfulness and love had. That may be because I have been attributing the fruits to other mortals. I've tried to be kinder, more patient, more joyful, and more loving to my fellow man (or woman). I've given more hugs, gotten over anger sooner, and been able to be somewhat more patient in more situations. I think when I think of faithfulness, I think of my marriage and faithfulness is not a problem. I will always be faithful to Kim and she will be to me.

I thought about it though, but lack of faithfulness, when it comes to marriage, doesn't necessarily mean adultry. I've screwed up a few times and could have possibly eroded the foundation that true faithfulness should be. More importantly, as Pastor Don explained, it's about faithfulness to God. We know God will be faithful to His word, but it sometimes seems difficult to always to be faithful to Him. Almost every time I feel I am not taking the high road in any situation, I feel like I'm being unfaithful. It's difficult trying to become a better person. If it wasn't, there wouldn't be so many books out there telling us all how to do it.

I had thought about this recently and I figured I was weak in too many areas. We were at our first hotel and I opened up the Bible to a random page. This is what He told me that night:

Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous and do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everythin written in it. then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not get discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

That is Joshua 1:6-9. It really meant a lot to me. Have I been as "strong and courageous" as I should be, as he mentions three times in this passage, knowing God is with me wherever I go? No, not nearly, but I'm working on it and these verses are sticking with me and soon that strength and courageousness will come. Remarkably, I am confident I will become a person I didn't know I could be just a few months ago. I don't know when this total transformation will come, but it has started. I just need to keep walking in the right direction. We all know which way that is.

I noticed a minor coincidence today. I've had three different names on this blog and two of them have been brought up at church in the last two weeks. Last week, Pastor Don emphasized that "God is good." This week Pastor Bob told the children that they were worth "more than many sparrows." When I had first changed the name to that one, I wrote that some people had interpreted that as sort of a joke or a sign that Jesus was human and had a sense of humor. A sparrow is not worth much, so saying we are worth more than sparrows is not saying much. Pastor Bob used it in an uplifting purpose with the children. Interestingly, he had forgotten where it was in Bible and couldn't find the verse. I knew it was somewhere in Matthew 10. Only after looking it up did I see it is in verse 31 of that chapter. When I have to go to the scripture to find a verse for some reason, I always wonder if God is asking me to read it to learn more from it. I assume He is.

After church, we went to a little shindig for Colton's other baseball team. We got to swim in the lake, play some baseball, and Colton did some fishing. He didn't catch anything, but it wasn't from a lack in trying. We'd been there once before to swim and I enjoy swimming the fairly long swim from dock to dock. Once we get out there, the boys can get a little dangerous trying to push each other in, but no one has gotten hurt yet. The food was good, the company was good and it was a beautiful day.

After this, Colton spent the night at Noah's house and Gabrielle spent the night at her Aunt Mary's. Kim went to play some bingo with Mary, so this left me some time with Noah. We played quite a bit and had a good time together.

Thank you for this time together with my family, Lord, and thank you for remaining faithful to Your word. Thank you for allowing me this time to become more loving, more joyous, more patient, more kind, more faithful, and more strong and courageous.

Amen.