Thriving...in Spite of It

What does hope have to do with courage?  I got the answer from a bumblebee.  Just a few feet away from me, an imminent threat to some, he hovers around the lavender this morning, tediously but persistently checking each tiny blossom for pollen. I move to pick up my coffee mug; he dodges ever so slightly, then returns to his task, inching closer and closer to where I sit as he works his way down the row.  It’s not that he’s careless of or oblivious to danger; he is just more determined than his instinctive and fully justifiable fears to secure what he needs in spite of them. Many of the blooms have dried or fallen, but he persists in checking each one anyway, driven by a minuscule possibility that there still might be something left. He hopes. He is driven by hope. His hope gives him courage to persist. And as he persists, courageously, he is rewarded by finding the occasional prize. Because of his courage, he finds more reason to hope.  So hope and courage flow in an...

As I sat and drew twining roses around the page this morning, thinking about this verse, I began to see a very definite connection—a path, if you will—between the things I do, the things I actually want to do, and the things I want.  Oh, how I would love to have a rose garden! But unless I invest the time and energy to plant the three rose bushes sitting in the garage, that will never begin to happen. Most of fruitful, worthwhile outcomes we enjoy don’t happen overnight. And they don’t happen on their own. As good and generous as God is, he wants us to invest effort alongside our faith toward the goals and dreams we long for. He wants us to ask, believing he can help us do it, and keep asking until it happens. He wants us to seek, with all our hearts, comparing our desires to his until the two align. He wants us to knock, persistently and deliberately, putting our own hands to work toward getting that door of opportunity to open.  If you’re believing for something today, put ...

It's Monday, again, and in the afterglow of a weekend of wonderful worship and refreshing family fun, we plunge back into the doldrums of daily duties with revived enthusiasm. Then it hits--the feeling of dread, restlessness, irrelevance. However delightful and favorable your workplace may be, you're probably feeling it today--like a kid stomping back to school after a four-day weekend, sullen-faced, heavy-hearted, and distracted. Mom used to call it the "don't want-to's." Yes, that's it--don't want to be here, don't want to do this---"can't adult today," as my daughter, working her way through college, now says. The expression has come full circle, evolving into Millineal-ese, but the feeling equally familiar to us all. We all occasionally have a sense of not belonging--or at least, not belonging  here , and it has little to do with situational discontent, especially after a break from your usual rolling mountain of duties. The ...