SMALL STRAWS IN A SOFT WIND by MARSHA BURNS:

Stay focused.  Your thoughts have wandered from things that are relevant and have brought up the past to instill a sense of failure and condemnation.  There is little if anything you can do about old issues.  Don’t dwell on the past or allow regrets to hinder your walk in the Spirit.  Release yourself from torment, says the Lord, and be free.

Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.

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I wasn’t ready for this one but here it came. Yet it was so true.

Just this morning as the day begun I was really struggling to keep focus on the things Papa has said over and over in my life. It was like life was conspiring to make me out to be a liar. Some of the things that happened may seem normal to everyone else but to me they were big things at that time.

First, I got stuck in traffic. Now you may say that is normal but not for me…I haven’t sat in as much traffic as I did today in over three years. Next, the shop I had felt led to did not have what I needed so I had to shop around. Next, I took longer than it should have taken to find what I needed. The people I asked for help gave me wrong information and all. Urggh!!!! In the back of my mind I am thinking about the document I am working on that isn’t making sense and costs are not adding up and I am so frustrated. I had to deliver one thing, find costs for something else, be at an exhibition and still deliver on my promise to my client.

By, 9.30am I was so tired it was like 10.00pm, yet the day wasn’t even half-way. Then I read the bulletin above and realised that trouble. ‘I was basing my expectation for today on the past and not fully on the word for today. I was so caught up in how it had worked in the past I had not seen the detour sign.’ Based on these happenings my day was a mess and I could not recover it.

I had to come back to the place where I accept that the pace for today had to be different and I had to connect to the message of today and the plan for today and forget the rest. What a relief when it all came into place. The resolution came a conversation with my business partner and an honest expression that I couldn’t do the exhibition. It came from sitting in the car under the shade and decoding my thoughts on paper as I ate an ice cream cone (best part was the ice cream). It came from moments of stillness and calmness even in the deep madness of the day. It came when the nanny said that she had found resolution for her problem.

At the end of the period of calmness, I realised that my focus had shifted and that caused major panic.

I rest in the love of Papa because I was reminded again that He is God and nothing other than what He has allowed can come my way. Amazing start to a very productive second half of my day. In a very limited way I begun to understand the words of Job when he said, Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face. Job 13:15