Welcome to September.
My alarm was set for 5:30. I was up by around 5:10 but I chose to lay in bed until the alarm went off… and when it did, I got up, made my bed, got dressed for the house and for working out… but decided to slump back on the bed to fiddle around with the phone until 6:00AM.
Thankfully, I was able to get back up by exactly that time instead of ‘negotiating’ to keep lying down till 6:10… then 6:30.. and so on. No, I immediately headed down and did my morning chores (Since the beginning of 2024 I’ve been learning, and am still learning, how difficult it is to maintain our humble home); I got everything on my list more or less done in 45 minutes.
I didn’t hesitate to head out and do something I’ve been wanting to do for ages – that is, to just walk, then jog around the neighborhood. 12-15 minutes later, I’ve hit 3000 steps so far today. I then took time to do a descending pyramid of 10 to 1 repetitions of 2-pump burpees, and then 10 to 1 1-pump burpees, for a total of 55 each.
I was intending to do 30 minutes on the heavy bag after a quick rest, but that ‘rest’ became me reading through Our Daily Bread and then the Old and New Testaments – and I read a little more of the former, because I was playing catch up. I haven’t been reading OR writing these past days.
So you can probably tell that I’m also playing catch up here, as I write now. I’m pretty sure I’m back in the red with regards to my writing so I hit the equivalent of a thousand words per day.
There was a post on X which asked, what are the most effective ways for you to keep your sanity? To this I replied, almost immediately: Writing, Praying, and Reading.
I’m more or less done with Reading and Praying – or, at least I’ve hit my daily quota for the former (you can never stop praying, even if you try – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). It’s time to write.
Or, it’s time to declutter a little more, in the name of sanity… and, of course, for His glory.
Yeah, sure, that sounded religious. But I’m at the point where I don’t care about how stuff like that sounds anymore – that’s precisely how my mind is being renewed, and consequently how I am being transformed, as Paul says in chapter 12 of his epistle to the Romans.
Again, welcome to September. We’ve had a lot of storms between now and the beginning of this year, but the message, the theme of the year still remains the same – We’re to trust in the Lord, and really, if I’m being honest, this is something I see us doing a whole lot more today than when this year started.
I’ve trusted in the Lord through the perceived escalation of events beginning around the end of May, just as I’ve trusted in the Lord through the blunders during the beginning of August. I’ve trusted in the Lord, through all the times I could have been in grave danger, and through all the times that I’ve lost control, and, consequently, deeply regretted it.
I’ve trusted in the Lord through rejection and rejecting, and am still now trusting in the Lord to help me end the cycles of pain, and to begin and maintain the cycles of reconciliation. I’ve trusted in the Lord, and am still emphasizing the need to keep on trusting in the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.
Is all of this to glorify what I’ve been doing? No, friends, God forbid that the message I communicate here is that I trust in my trusting in the Lord. By the grace of God, by the finished work of Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, may I look beyond selfish intentions, beyond the desires of the flesh, to truly trust in my Savior.
In my bumming around in bed waiting for 6am earlier I was going through Instagram reels, and one in particular stood out – a clip of a conversation between a pair of folks that I once never expected to come to Christ: Russell Brand and Michael Franceze. One was a secular comedian who stepped on anyone and everyone, including Christ, in order to get some yuks, while the other one was a prominent mobster.
Anyway, in the quick reel, Mr. Franceze quoted a verse which I have in mind even now as I write this: When a man’s ways please the LORD, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.Proverbs 16:7
Now that I paste it on here, I think to myself, this verse would have been golden for a guy like him, considering the enemies he must have had – and then I go back to why it appealed to me in the first place…
In said escalation of events since around the second quarter of this year, I’ve probably made some prominent enemies of my own, and there’s the chance I might make some more enemies as this year comes to a close.
And in the times I’ve had the opportunity to do some thinking… well, it’s not that I’ve recalled people I’ve called enemies, but I’ve remembered people who rejected me, people I’ve rejected, people who have hurt me, people I’ve hurt… and the thing is, I may not necessarily call them my enemies, but oh, if I was honest with myself, what I would give just for there to be peace – in their minds, and in mine!
I mean, especially in the case of rejection, I’ve been clamoring for reconciliation, and chances to communicate, and so on – but maybe what I’ve really been needing was what I mentioned right there – peace, in their minds, and mine.
Or, maybe I shouldn’t even be thinking that far into it, and just place my focus on staying consistent in pleasing the Lord – and more than just going along my way, knowing that in Christ He is pleased with me no matter what, I honestly want to be more intentional in reciprocating God’s being happy with me, if only for me to know that He would work on my ‘enemies’, those who call themselves my enemies, and those I’ve called my enemies, and so on.
Putting it all together, I’m making the assumption that you can’t trust in the Lord without understanding the cycle of how He is pleased by us, and how we naturally want to please Him;
Trust in the Lord, and please Him; find pleasure in the Lord, and trust Him.
…and the peace – yes, the peace that goes beyond all understanding – that follows.
I hope I made sense here.
Until the next post, God bless us all.
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