Jackson Falls, Jackson New Hampshire
Picture by Richard Sawyer
Our Blog is Inspired by The Holy Spirit
Wednesday of the Thirtieth Week in Extraordinary Time
My hope, O Lord, is in your mercy.
Look, answer me, O LORD, my God!
Give light to my eyes that I may not sleep in death
lest my enemy say, “I have overcome him”;
lest my foes rejoice at my downfall.
R. My hope, O Lord, is in your mercy.
Though I trusted in your mercy,
Let my heart rejoice in your salvation;
let me sing of the LORD, “He has been good to me.”
R. My hope, O Lord, is in your mercy.
Emphasis mine: Psalm 13:4-5, 6
Throughout my life, and now our life, My Hope was in the mercy of God. At first I believed maybe God wasn’t looking, or maybe He would give me some slack.
This isn’t Joyful, and if you go back and read the Old Testament you will see this is exactly what the Jewish people thought before the Babylonian exile.
You see, as I am just learning, our problem is that we haven’t really grown much from the pre Bablionian exile.
Read any one of the next five Old TestamentBooks; Isiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Baruch or Ezekiel, and you will read how the Jewish people worshiped other gods even in the Temple.
If you read about the start of the Jewish nation, you will read where God tells the Jewish Nation to kill everyone in a nation they are conquering (men, women and children).
Why?
Because if they didn’t, the wives and husbands of the conquered nation would get the Jewish people worshiping their gods, and they did!
In Exodus 20:5, God told the Jewish people, you shall not bow down before them or serve them. For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their ancestors’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation;
And you would be jealous too, if you had provided a race of people (Jewish) with the houses built and the fields established. All they had to do was conquer (which God did), occupy and improve.
And what did the Jewish People do?
Gave credit to other gods.
In fact, after God brought them out of Egypt, they made a cow to represent the god who brought them out of Egypt.
How about you?
Are you crediting luck as to a good thing that happened? Are you saying something happened because of YOUR efforts with no thought of God? Are you indifferent to God, as I was for many years? God was up there, and I was down here, and that was fine with me (satan thought).
We are just finishing up my Autobiography, which is for our family only, and our last thought in the book is:
Lastly, and our most important thought is, I wish I had let God the Father run my entire life. Until age seventy I did as God asked as long as we agreed on what God was asking I should do.
This was WRONG!!
As proof of this it was God who told me to call Gail. I am thankful every day I did as God asked me to do.
Because of our marriage we had three fantastic sons, who married three awesome women, who had a total of five incredible Grandchildren and two wonderful Great Grandchildren.
We were and are BLESSED!
For Gail and I, it’s always been about God and family.
So my question is: What would my life have been like if I had listened to God and had done His will (not mine) during my working years?
We have written six books about this and I will stop here.
My hope, O Lord, has been and is in your mercy.
Prayer:
If you want to grow in Love, Joy and Peace, this is a result of growth in Patience, Kindness, Generosity, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control.
Sidebar:
I just learned two thoughts that we had to pass along.
One:
It will be as when a man who was going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents; to another, two; to a third, one—to each according to his ability. Then he went away. Immediately the one who received five talents went and traded with them, and made another five. Likewise, the one who received two made another two. But the man who received one went off and dug a hole in the ground and buried his master’s money. Emphasis mine: Matthew 25: 14-18
How much is a Talent worth? I never knew until Saturday, when in a Faith Group I was attending, Nick Rico said it was equal to fifteen years wages and in today’s dollars that would be over one million dollars.
So,
The man who was given five Talents received over five million dollars.
I never knew the amount but I now realize it is not chump change, and as we are typing this I, yes I, also realize God has never given out chump change. It is always much more than anyone could reasonably expect, which is why I, yes I, now more fully believe this is one more proof that the Triune God we worship is a God of OUTREAGEOUS LOVE.
As we wrote above, God has provided our family with much more than any one could wish or even dare ask for.
Two:
This I read from Fr. Richard Rohr, I don’t know the date:
In the great scheme of things it doesn’t really matter what I want. We are not free at all until we are free from ourselves. It is that simple and that hard.
Picture:
Jackson Falls in Jackson NH. I love photographing the little falls in a river! Picture by Richard Sawyer
Please keep Snapping!
And if you want the ten calling cards shown above, email me and I will send you my address, send me a STAMPED self-addressed envelope and I will send you ten cards. I have just learned that this offer for the physical cards is available to people who live in the States, because the Post Office will not honor sending mail with Foreign Stamps.
To Simone in North Yorkshire, I received your letter, and return envelope with postage, but found out I can’t mail the cards to you using British stamps. Email me and we can discuss how we can solve the issue, and I will explain why I was so late. Fred
Email me if you want a copy of the prayers we discussed.
fprince101@gmail.com
Remember, if you want to submit a picture, please do not include people. We have to get permission from that person to use their photograph.
