Musings In the Cold

Bitter cold day again! And this is North Carolina where all the poisonous creatures like to live because it is so warm. I don't know, but sure seems to me the global warming crowd should be sent back to the lab without any coats or mittens. It was so cold yesterday that I agreed with my crazy daughter that our dogs needed extra sweaters. I am supposed to go learn about being a sidewalk counselor today, but given my precarious health in conjunction with this record cold spell, I may have to wait for the next seminar. I will be of no use as a sidewalk counselor if I am dead from pneumonia. However, my heart is telling me that I need to do this, so unless I take a turn for the worse in the next hour, I will be learning about how to lovingly encourage prospective abortion-minded moms to make another choice, even at that late moment before they walk into the clinic.

Yesterday, I spent the cold day writing. I am still waiting on the final proof of the book I just finished to be approved by the main character. In the meantime, I have been working on my first fiction book. It is about 3/4ths of the way done. It is a murder mystery, involving a dog. I know nothing about murder, police work, or really even the situations that caused the murder in my book. Fortunately, my niece just got promoted to Sergeant in Pima County, Az, and her husband is a deputy. They are a constant source of information. In a nutshell, what I have learned is that there are some really BAD people in this world.

I found myself circling my spiritual wagons to remind myself why God decided to let us humans live. The more I learn about us, the less I like us. Why does God like us? Does He ever really say? I tried to find out. There are plenty of Biblical references for why He shouldn't like us, but He never really tells us why He does like us. The best I could come up with is that God likes us because He wants to. It is completely because of who He is and nothing at all about who we are. This is a bit deflating for those of us with tender egos, eager for affirmation. When you get right down to it, there is nothing in any of us worthy of affirming when compared to God. On the other hand, if there is nothing we can do to earn His love, there is nothing we can do to lose it either. Maybe it is not such a bad deal after all.

Love is God's nature. The Bible tells us God is love. We are pretty fortunate that He is, because otherwise, we would be doomed. The takeaway: love Him back.

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1John 4: 8-16
8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live
through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.