This week’s winner of the Love is a Verb Devotional is Lisa Sabatini! Lisa, send me your address at [email protected] to claim your prize.

Now, onto this week’s blog...

To try and keep my thoughts God-centered, my attitude right, and my gratitude meter pegged, I’ve been working through an online Bible study about godly contentment. Knowing my tendency to see the glass half empty, I’ve been keeping Philippians 4:8 in front of me… trying to review it most days.

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” (NKJV)

Even so, I find myself down quite often. All it takes is an obstacle or a delay and my mood falls. I wouldn’t call it depressed. I’ve been there and this isn’t that. Rather, it’s a time of sighing.

Paul, other than telling us to focus on what is good, also says that whatever we have or don’t have, we should be content. I know, intellectually, how incredibly blessed I am. My physical needs are all met. I am a child of the one true God. I have family and friends who love me.

But…

I have dreams. Dreams for many of the stories I’ve written. Dreams for the stories I have yet to finish. Dreams of futures of contentment for those I love. And when a project is rejected, an idea is belittled, or someone I care about suffers yet again, my soul stumbles, often falling into the ditch by the side of the path. As I push myself back to my feet, I look up at my God and sigh.

Why? Why, Lord? I don’t understand. I thought these dreams came from You. I thought they honored You, Your Kingdom, and yet, time and again the matters closest to my heart seem to be stomped on by the world.

Again, the seesaw of the sigh reminds me of how incredibly blessed I am. Then, guilt floods in. Why do I put such worth into these dreams when God alone is worthy?

The Bible words for sigh, both Old and New Testament indicate an external reaction to an internal reflection or prayer. If a prayer, then the sigh communicates my heart to God. He knows, because He inspired Solomon to record it that “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs, 13:12 NASB) It is that deferral, the delay of a dream, that inspires the sigh. It is another indication that we can see the gap between the world as God originally intended where our work and relationships would satisfy, and the world we find ourselves in. If Jesus himself sighed (and the Bible says he did), it isn’t necessarily a sin to do so. It can be an honest expression of where we find ourselves.

Even so, I think I allow the world to trip me up far too often. I forget to focus on the goodness of God. I forget to name all my blessings and thank God for His provisions in my life. Instead, I look at that one dream or one problem in front of me.

My Heavenly Father has an amazing track record of bringing me through similar difficulties. Let my sighs be prayers unto you, God. And then turn my mind again to Philippians 4:8 to thank you for every blessing and bit of goodness you have lavished upon my day.

Recently, I divested myself of one of my collections. About twenty years ago I chose to collect okapis because I love the animal—shy, reclusive, and still relatively unknown while being adorable and velour soft. (Yes, I got to pet an okapi years before they understood how much people traumatize the critters.) I also chose it as a collection because I knew it would grow slowly. Okapi souvenirs and trinkets are hard to find. The picture is the extent of my collection, barring the two magnets and a Christmas ornament, that I managed to acquire during that time.

For a while, they made me smile whenever I looked at them. But for the last few years, that joy has diminished. They collected dust, fell over, and were hard to clean around. And, I kept thinking, someone else—perhaps a teen or a child—would love them much more. So, I gave them away.

Keeping the magnets and the ornament are a small way to remember and honor the collection.

Growing up, I collected dolls. In my early thirties, most of them left. I still have a wooden figurine (not technically a doll, but feminine) from Germany and my aunt’s original Snow White from the late thirties. I remember my mother being quite disappointed when I ceased collecting. They had always made for a somewhat easy present for birthdays and Christmas.

Though I winnow its selection from time to time, I will likely keep collecting magnets. They take up very little space and they remind me of people I haven’t seen in a while or places I’ve been. Looking at the magnets is like a life snapshot captured on my refrigerator.

My final collection which will remain as a few choice pieces contains nativities. That was a collection that my mother and I had in common and a collection that speaks to my faith. I don’t plan on expanding it, but I won’t be getting rid of what I have either.

Some of my friends have beautiful or well-curated collections of things from Christmas decorations to paintings to china teacups and so forth. I have nothing against collecting what brings joy and beauty to a life. But I’ve also known people who long to get rid of collections and can’t bring themselves to do it because “it might be worth something someday” or “I’ve always done this and the routine of collecting has become a part of me”.

Both of those phrases, thoughts do echo in my mind whenever I get rid of something. The guilt for saying that a part of my life and memories, sometimes a substantial part of my life and memories, needs to leave my today.

When our treasured collections have a home with us, they can even testify to our appreciation of beauty.

By wisdom a house is built,
    and through understanding it is established;
 through knowledge its rooms are filled
    with rare and beautiful treasures. (Proverbs 24:3-4)

But when they cease to nourish our spirits, then we need to turn our eyes to the other treasures, the ones in heaven that never fade, that will never cease to bring us joy. “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:20-21)

I wonder if unlike some of my friends, I’m just not that good at assembling a collection where all the pieces complement each other.

God, though, excels at gathering the perfect collection. In the end of days, all the pieces He has gathered, His beautiful treasure, currently the body of Christ on this fallen world will become the Holy bride of Christ, knit together with His love.

Heather Wilkinson, you are this week’s random winner of A Cup of Comfort for Mothers!

After I receive at least five random comments, the next winner will receive Love is a Verb Devotional.

Because of the 250th anniversary of the United States this coming weekend, and because many people I love are going through seasons of difficulty whether it be career, personal, spiritual, emotional or a combination thereof, I have been thinking about what it means to endure.

No matter what you think about the United States today, if you look back at the men and women who risked everything to establish the country, you see endurance. The fact that George Washington had any army to speak of after Valley Forge shows endurance and faith—faith that something better could come of all this hardship. The hunger and the cold would be worth something or why persevere? Why would men suffering deprivation and frostbite, not to mention the uncertainty of a future paycheck, stick around if they didn’t believe in the cause of freedom? For that matter, why would Washington stay with his troops when he could ride for the warm fires of Mount Vernon? They had faith that enduring embodied the hope of a greater prize.

Even before that cold winter, many of the colonial leaders knew that signing their name to the Declaration of Independence would endanger their estates and livelihood. Some of the men did lose, if not everything, substantially by taking the side of the colonies. It would’ve been easier to go along, to pay the taxes and be good little British citizens. But these men were learned. They looked at the Magna Carta and said we have worth and because of that worth, we should have the right to say how we will live.

Many of them were Christians. Those who weren’t, knew the examples of Scripture. They would have known that “endure” is one of the apostle Paul’s favorite words.

In part, because Paul endured. While all the apostles were persecuted to one degree or another, Paul, perhaps because of his heritage as part of the leading governance of the Jews, seemed to have been singled out to a greater degree. In a few passages he lists the beatings he received, the murder and execution attempts he survived, and then all the natural disasters he encountered with their own pains. He endured much.

But like the U.S. founding fathers much later, Paul had his eyes on something other than his endurance. He called on Timothy to endure. “But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.”  2 Timothy 4:5, NIV He reminded the Corinthian church not to succumb to temptation, but to persevere, looking toward Jesus. “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” 1 Corinthians 10:13 And later he told them about an incident that he and his fellow missionaries barely survived. “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” 2 Corinthians 1:8b-9

Finally, in that last verse, we get the clue to Paul’s enduring. But he told his fledgling church that when all hope appears to be gone, you endure because God gives you the strength. You endure because God lights your way.

Enduring is rarely pleasant. It is life that simply takes the next step. It opens its eyes, looks to God, and begs for guidance and mercy.

In the early days of the Revolutionary War, there was a lot of life like that. But, and this is key, there were enough praying Christians to uphold those who were enduring. There were enough who looked to God and to providence and begged for guidance and mercy.

Today, I pray for all my friends and family who endure in this moment. May God guide them and be merciful to them. But I also praise God for His intervention in the history of mankind and how He walks with those who endure.

When I have five or more comments, the next winner will receive a copy of the Cup of Comfort Devotional for Mothers.