Grow!!!

For the last two weeks it’s been raining/blowing cotton all over the patio, plants and ground!

Probably a 70′ cottonwood tree is still covered with hanging cottony puffs from the ends of every branch. It will be a while before it quits dropping cotton. Each individual puff of cotton has only one tiny seed attached…kind of reminds me of a badminton birdie design.

Why do we need 4 million seeds flying around from one tree? Stuff is meant to grow and provide more than enough. This one tree provides not only seeds for new trees, but also seeds for birds to eat, plus the cotton provides soft lining for the baby birds’ nests. Left over cotton turns back into dirt to replenish the land. I have a love/hate relationship with the tree because of the cotton flying everywhere, but the upside is the terrific shade it provides and the rustley sound as the wind blows through it.

I think all of nature tells us we are to grow, increase, do better, strive for more, become stronger, in turn becoming more helpful…just look back at all the great things mankind has done to better the lives of themselves, creating more beauty, making life easier from what we’ve been given by the earth.

Let’s not digress and diminish what we do. There should be no guilt or shame for making/creating/having abundance. God intended it to be this way. He says, “Grow”! and remember Me while you do.

What Are We Going to Do?

Today at work a very dear lady, concerned about the status of world events began to tell me all that she had heard from her sources. Others have told me their thoughts from their sources. They conflict.

I began to stew over things and was feeling down.  I like to think of myself as a positive type person, ready to see the good in things, but this left me seeing the worst.

I had to get centered again on what I know to be true.

Years ago when I first came to faith in Jesus, I was in a similar stew…in my early 20s, life was just getting started, and there were so many tough world events going on that seemed impossible to solve. My mind was in a twirl.

I desperation I said, “God show me what to think!”

Shortly after that I saw the verse Philippians 4:8. It says to ‘fix your thoughts on what is true, and good, right, pure, lovely. Think about what is excellent and worthy of praise’.

I guess I didn’t have to worry about everything going on and keep informed on every negative event in the world…out of my control anyway.

I’m gonna pray, but not let things eat me up with worry, I’m gonna enjoy and live the life I have, that I am responsible to God and my family for.

We can allow, I said allow because it is our choice, ourselves to concentrate, focus, listen to, talk about everything negative until it’s all consuming… trying to solve and fix problems too big for us, that we don’t see our kids playing happily outside. We don’t enjoy the pretty spring day feeling the sunshine, we aren’t thinking of making something beautiful for another person. We have reverted to survival mode.

God is aware of all these happenings, yet He isn’t up there worrying. He is still sending rain, warm weather, baby animals.  The sun is still rising, the grass is greening again, trees will bud and leaf out. We will harvest crops again. In other words, He is still giving life and providing for life.

In the midst of trouble, God is not a God of scarcity, He sends abundance.

What we are going to do is change our focus from majoring on what’s bad and begin to see and major on what’s beautiful, happy, good.

What is one good thing I can focus on today?

What Are You Looking For?

Because you will find it.

This goes either way…positive or negative.

Friends or enemies

Help or aloneness

Abundance or lack

People doing right or people doing wrong

Thankfulness or cynicism

Encouragement or criticism

Faith or skepticism

A way through or a way out

Courage or fear

Solutions or problems

Love or hate

Be on the lookout for what you want. You will find it.