"CHOOSE-DAY" TUESDAY!

A text from sweet friend JA had me thinking of all the best things to choose for this Tuesday.

Admittedly, I had to choose to quit complaining first so all the joy could spring forth!

Choose love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness and gratitude❣️

In a nutshell....

CHOOSE JESUS!*

*A reminder I see daily in my prayer room!

CHOOSEDAY!

ChooseDay! I love the play on words for Tuesday!*

It has me thinking about Biblical choices to be considered. 

Think---love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. As the picture hanging in my prayer room reminds me, "Choose this day whom you shall serve.....

... as for me and my house, will serve the Lord."(Joshua 24:14)

On this ChooseDay, let us choose what is right. (Job 34:4)

*Thanks to friend Renee for the ChooseDay text this morning!

CHOICES!

The Christian life is all about choices.

Daily one faces choosing how to face the day.

I once read that many folks try to dull  the pain of all the "what if " and "if only" worries of life in unhealthy ways.

Retail therapy is about as helpful as a sugar rush.

AT our house, hubby grabs his COSTCO card and I grab a handful of jelly beans.

What we both need to grab is our faith.

Choose this day whom you will serve;...as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. (Joshua 24;15)

A faith that loves God and serves others for his glory.

That's why this gift has hung above an outside door since the seventies.....

a daily reminder to make the right choice!

CHOOSE THIS DAY....FOOD FOR THOUGHT FRIDAY!

How great it would be if all decisions made today would be as easy as choosing my morning cuppa!

All my tea options are good ones to me. I don't even have to choose caffeine free if it's only 7am. 

Other choices throughout the day are more difficult because of the ramifications. Such choices can be important or complex, nothing like deciding on loose leaf or tea bag for my morning cuppa.

How would my choice affect someone else. Physically?  Emotionally? Monetarily? Spiritually? (Romans 12:10)

• To encourage. (Ephesians 4:29) 
• To build up. (Romans 15:2) 
• To motivate to love and good works. (Hebrews 10:24)
• An encouraging word cheers a person up. (Proverbs 12:25)

Each day our choices count! 

That's real food for thought this Friday and everyday.

PONDER YOUR DAILY CHOICES!

Choose this day whom you shall serve...(Joshua 24:15)
It's always your choice. 

Self-Centeredness or Christ-centeredness?

https://app.rightnowmedia.org/en/content/details/98580?session=98580

Are you willing to "trade" your Me, Me, Me, life for His?

Every part of your life, time, money_ _ _ _?

Ponder. Choose. Repeat.

DECLARATIVE SIGNAGE

Declarative signage makes a declarative statement.

Lord give us all eyes to see "signs" which you have allowed to cross our paths!

I wonder if the car passing on the left of the Big M truck had eyes to see. Gospel message in a nutshell!

Each day we make choices----the narrow path where Jesus leads to discipleship and service .....or the wide path of pleasure and money which can easily lead to self-serving sin! This transport company/driver shared this truth visually. Hooray!

How about you? Do you live out gospel truth for others to see in your life? 

Our lives can be "declarative signage" for all to see as we make right choices.

Hmmm......maybe that becomes an imperative!

"WORRYING NOT" WEDNESDAY!

" Worrying Not" Wednesday! At least it's somewhat alliterative. 

But....why is same word, just as a different part of speech, repeating itself from last week's entry?

A better question is....what are the INGs in your life? (Preaching to the choir here.)

Are you choosING worry or are you celebratING your moments?

Gerund test for all worrywarts.....ING  or  ING (alphabetical order, of course)

• AcceptING? ControlING?
• PrayING? ComplainING? 
• ReadING & meditatING TalkING & vexING?
• RestING & RefreshING? RushING ahead in own strength?
• ServING others? servING self?
• WaitING on God? WorryING?  

(Test = 23 words without counting ampersands.)

Choose this day--(Joshua 24:15)

"NOT"worryING---I'm just sayING!

30 DAYS HATH SEPTEMBER.....mostly on the road again & again

So much travel for us lately that it seems as if we're home long enough to unpack and repack.
Whether by air or on the road, the trips have been to visit family or dear friends so all are special! Children, grandchildren, brothers and 3 cousins. In between times we even had visitors---from both Colorado and Florida.
No problems along the way except those that are "age related"---a medical term used often for me lately.
Physical problems have been easier for me to grapple with than spiritual ones. It seems that when my routine varies, my quiet times get skewed. Factor in fatigue and even my best attempts flag. "God observes my travel and my rest." yet, when travel increases my rest is moved to the back seat, literally. (Psalm 139:3)
But God.....uses many "visuals" too help me refocus. On recent highway home, church signs to bill boards whizzed by and brought both humor and warnings but my reflexes wren't fast enough to record them. I do remember a billboard just west of Sulphur Springs, Texas, "Real Christians love their enemies." One that I was able to capture on I-30 in Texas was a jolt---a real positive surprise! A gospel message for all to see.

Truth on the tail end of a truck!

A crossroads visual. The way to Jesus includes service and discipleship.
We all choose each day the path we will choose. The straight and narrow that leads to Jesus or the "other"----path to sin. Believers choose Jesus---I'm grateful to be on the road with a "truck driver" who shares an eternal message.
A reminder for all to heed--- on the "road again".

CONSIDER HERITAGE-SHARING

Of all the influential women in my early years, several stand out. Mother, enough said. Gena, a grandmother who nurtured my love for reading at every turn. Mrs. Munday, my 4th grade teacher who helped me, a crying 10 yr. old, with "complicated" division. Christine, my across the street neighbor, who was like a grandmother to me.

But...it was my maternal grandmother, Mama Davenport, who was my spiritual mentor, before I even knew what that was. With her gnarled arthritic hands clasped in prayer and her humming in the kitchen as she stirred up stewed tomatoes in her white enamel saucepan with the red rim, her quiet gentle spirit spoke volumes. Her willingness to "walk" up that 2nd street hill to church every Sunday because she didn't drive and Dang-Dang would not take her. 

I've not known many women I could label as "never complaining," but Mama was a the top of that list. (1Timothy 6:6)

Her well worn Bible is one of my treasures and her underlined verses have offered much insight in to her suffering and her trust in the Lord. My other treasure is my heritage snowball bush.....

...which had its beginnings from her childhood home in Hampton Station, Kentucky. From there to Clarksville, TN, to my parents' home in Hopkinsville, Ky to my home in Memphis, TN, the bush is a living legacy of a small graceful woman who was and still is in many ways, my spiritual mentor.

A snowball  bush that has been propagated and cultivated throughout Memphis and to our son's home in Texas and most recently to our daughter's home in Richland Estates.

Not only do I love that this bush will be cultivated with love and spiritual memories, I love it that Molly and Corey's dog who is checking it out is named Millie. Millie was Daddy's pet name for mother. If he was getting really sassy he would call her Millie Lou.

What a legacy of love came to my mind as I typed. What a great heritage I have been given.
My "heritage snowball bush" is but a reminder to open her Bible and consider the best underlined passages to  share---not only with my children but also with my "grands," (Proverbs 13:22) as the heritage of the upright will abide forever.(Psalm 37:18, AMP)

CHOOSE: THIS DAY

Sharing with friend, Melody about "choose" as "My One Word" for 2017, she immediately began quoting Joshua 24:15.

Choose you this day whom ye will serve....as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

That's getting right back to the basics of choosing. Once one chooses the Lord today and every day, everything else just falls into place.

Choosing Him over self makes even the struggles and the hard places more palatable. 

Choose to "start today" this very day----to serve Him and NOT self. 

CHOOSE: MY ONE WORD

"CHOOSE: MY ONE WORD." This entry title says it all for me. Literally.

My One Word, as Franklin Graham calls it, "is a refreshing approach to NewYear's Resolutions..."
Kyle Idleman calls it, a lens that can change every area of your life....more than a to-do list....more than a New Year's resolution.

It was a book that I had never even heard of until last Friday---a gift from visiting friend, Angie.
A book I have since devoured although the recommended approach is a slow one.
The premise is choosing one-word for your year's focus. Just one. The choosing occurs after prayerful consideration over a period of time. Friend and blog reader, Margie H, leaned over and said, "I bet your word is going to be joy." Actually that came to my mind as well.
After all, I blogged on January 1, "In 2017 may I choose joy!"

But God....obviously had a different word in  mind. It all started as I looked back at that very first entry. The fact that I even had continued blogging in 2017, is still somewhat of a mystery to me.
Being as OCD as I am, I began reading in order all the titles of "dotsydetails" entries since January 1. There was one word consistent in all 37 entries and it wasn't joy. The word was choose.
So many of my responses in life, even in my thought life, are of my own choosing. Though I'm not sure where all this word choice will take me as I begin to focus but the Lord has already provided a good foundation. Two verses will begin my "choose" project. The first is from Joshua 24:15, "Choose this day whom you will serve...."
The second verse is "Seek ye first the kingdom of God...."(Matthew 6:33) Though "choose" is not stated in the verse, to me, it is "understood." One must choose to seek. Seeking Him is a choice. God showed me that choosing to seek is a volitional concept of an intended action. In other words, by an act of my will, I make daily choices----whether of not I choose to seek Him first or to serve Him, the choice is always up to me. The ball of "choice" is in my court! I hope to share throughout the year what God teaches me as I focus on my single word choice!

Choose is "my one word." That word says it all for me for 2017.

Heredi-TEA---a "hand-me-down" cuppa

But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” 
(Joshua 24:15, NIV)

I, in no way, am the Bible teacher my seminary-trained son, Buddy is.....so God often uses him to "help" me along.....and I am so grateful....especially as I struggle to teach a passage with more theological depth than I have. 

However, as I was prepping to teach "Preach the Word" from 2 Timothy 4:1-8, at our Heart to Heart Bible Study, I came across a picture that warms my heart. It will mean nothing to anyone but me----but to me it speaks volumes. Something I do that I had no idea he does too....until I saw his teaching Bible open on a recent Texas visit. 

Ever camera ready for a possible Kodak "tea" moment, I "snapped" away and then filed away.....until.... God showed it to me as I was feeling a little "less than" scholarly yesterday morning, prior to my teaching time. And.....it doesn't even have to do with Bible knowledge. It has to do with connection. May I sense that connection again tonight as I seek to be "refreshed"as I repeat my lesson for the "night" group!

Maybe, as a household chooses to serve the LORD and chooses to write scripture on “door frames” or in their Bibles  (as we are told to do in Deuteronomy)----maybe imprinting them on hearts requires teaching them to others. Maybe at our house it needs to be LARGE PRINT----so we can see it as we teach---for me , it's a safety net in case I can't remember or lose my place as I'm reading them. For  me, increasing the font and cutting & attaching the passage inside the teaching Bible, eases my reading! We both do it---for me, there's comfort in that.

A cuppa heredi-TEA for sipping when we need to be able to "read" the passage we're teaching from as we stand behind our lectern.

"TEA-rrific" Day

Choose this day whom you will serve.....as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. (Joshua 24:15, NASB)

Some days are terrific from the get-go. Others, not so much.

Like happiness, terrific days are a choice.

Verse 15 of Joshua 24 shows us that God's call for "choice" is for all of us. 

A public choice.

It is a choice for each of us. A personal choice. 
It is a choice for parents to make for all in their households. A parental choice. (B. Liles, 5/11/14)

Choosing to serve Him. A right choice. 

There's a bottom line for choice. Choosing to serve God is choosing to have a "TEA-rrific day, regardless of one's circumstances.

tea-rrific! product now available at Kroger.
(Carolyn F.,---Batesville, MS)

Starting each day with Him is a choice. A right one. Starting it with a cuppa is also a choice. A TEA-riffic one for me!

"traveloci-TEA"

Choose for yourselves this day.....(Joshua 24:15, NIV)

At our house you can tell where we've chosen to travel by hubby's collection of mugs in our kitchen cabinet. Mugs that mostly bring good memories. What you can't see are our places we've chosen to travel in our minds. Things that too often we lug mentally. 

Oh the places we go, even in our minds----or as Dr. Seuss writes, Oh the Places You'll Go. (1990)

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...” 

So....today when you pour your morning cuppa, remember that daily we "choose whom we will serve" and even as Dr. Seuss says, "Today is your day"----your day to choose. 

Maine, Summer of 2013
A trip chosen to be with family & to celebrate the 90th birthday of Ashley Bryan.
Both were times of rejoicing!

"Traveloci-TEA" Might make it easier and cheaper but it's only a company. Travelocity takes you only where you choose to go. It can arrange for you to go to faraway places but the luggage you lug there is all yours. So.....remember, "This is the day the Lord hath made" so...."rejoice and be glad in it." (Psalm 118:24)
That's what you need to pack up for your all your trips. Even those you take only in your mind.

Pick of the Litter

4/2/10 Fifty-nine years ago today, I chose my baby brother, or so the story goes. It was a snowy day in April in Hopkinsville, KY when my Aunt Dot Seay came to tell me of the predicament. My mother had gone to the Jennie Stuart hospital to pick up our new baby. I don’t guess we “birthed” babies back then and there had never been any “where babies come from” discussions at 2211. My Aunt Dot, who was Dr. Cost’s assisting nurse, came to tell me that 4 babies had been delivered that day----3 really ugly little girls and 1 precious little boy with curly blonde hair. She wanted to know which one I wanted since all along I had thought I would “get” a baby sister. I guess ugly didn’t appeal to me because I chose my baby brother. I made a good choice.

Our heavenly Father chose each of us. Was it a good choice?

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: (Ephesians 1:4)

Because He sees us through the love and sacrifice of His Son, He sees a good choice. Do others see that as well? Our lives reflect the choices we make. Do we make good choices?

….choose you this day whom ye will serve;…..as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. (Joshua 24:15)