Lovely, Indeed!

Today’s message comes to us from Psalm 84. It’s one of my favorites. I’ve posted the whole psalm for you bleow, from the ESV

How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise! Selah

Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion. O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah
Behold our shield, O God; look on the face of your anointed! For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O LORD of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you.

There’s nothing you can add to this. When you read it, especially aloud, you can feel the joy and peace flooding your soul. This goes perfectly with today’s psalm. Thank you, Matt Redman.

Love you from Cafe du Mondieu

The Whirling Dust

Hello again from inspirations. I’m still dealing with the results of that attack; but feeling better and better. Now that things are getting pretty much back to normal, I didn’t want to O.D. anyone on the Holy Spirit. LOL!

Today’s message comes to us from Psalm 83. The first part of the psalm outlines the malice and onslaught of the wicked. Keeping in mind that the wicked are those forces at work in the spirit (powers, principalities, hosts of spiritual wickedness), in the heavenly places, you can begin to get an idea of what we’re up against-even from childhood. Loud noises scare babies, spilled milk can send a two year old into a panic, etc. It doesn’t get any easier when we’re grown; we’re just able to handle some of the stuff a little better.

The latter half of the psalm is a, “Go get ’em, Jesus!” Do to them the worst stuff possible. Drive them completely into oblivion. They’ll be there one day. When I read the one about the whirling dust, I couldn’t help but remember that wind and all the stuff flying at me…and especially, that bag and the styrofoam plate. LOL!

The last line of the psalm is what I want to focus on: “that they may know that you alone, whose name is the LORD, are the Most High over all the earth.” That’s the one that’s important. You see, they already know that He’s the Most High over all the earth. They just don’t care. Just like Satan used the scriptures to trip Jesus up, twisting them to turn them into a hook to catch him with, we need to use them to shut those forces down. The Word of God is alive and active, accomplishing that for which it’s sent, and not returning void-not to God, and not to us, either. You may not see the results right away, but you will feel them in your own spirit. Again, it’s very important for us to know the Word of God; and to know God, Himself, intimately. He’s not a far away god, He’s just like that Daddy that scoops you up into his arms and holds you near. He’s up there laughing at some of your foibles, cheering over all your tiniest victories, and getting just as excited with you as you are over your latest project. When we learn to know Him that way, that bond of love and trust grows stronger and stronger. That, in turn, empowers our faith like nothing else does. I hope you’ll read the entire psalm for yourselves.

Love you from Cafe du Mnodieu

Saturday Silly – May 22, 2021

Happy Birthday, Bubba! Your mama sure does love ya! You make life worth living for me! I hope your day is fabulously awesome, filled with everything wonderful, tons of love and laughter, and beautiful memories! Love you so much! Mommy!

My goodness, I cannot believe I’m surviving this horrible attack ordeal! Thankfully, the E.R. team was awesome, once the clowning was done. I don’t know how they deal with some of the people that come iin there.

I was a little confused about the eye drops thing. The nurse told me to put them in every two hours when I’m awake…but she didn’t say how often I should put them in when I’m asleep.

I’m also taking a new medication for a week. When I read the side effects, I got a little fearful. “Notify your physician if you lose consciousness,” it says. “OMG!” I thought. Are they serious?! Do you know that I won’t be able to call my physician when I’m unconscious?! I took the first dose just the other night, but I don’t know if I lost consciousness or just fell asleep, cuz, it was at night, at bedtime.

I hate being a patient, I just hate it! Now I don’t know if my head hurts because of the injury, or because of all this thinking I’m having to do!

Love you from Cafe du Mondieu

Freedom Is Responsibility

Today’s message comes to us from Psalm 82. God’s reminding us that freedom is responsibility. Status, no matter how small or how great, comes with expectations, with standards, and with boundaries. Every king and queen must know this.

“God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
“How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah
Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.” Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the nations!” (ESV)

When you look at this from God’s vantage point, you can see that He sees us much differently than we see ourselves. How many times I was in “invincible” mode. How many times I thought I could handle it all. Oh, yeah, and that period in my life when I thought I knew it all. LOL I can laugh now, but boy was I a mess when I realized I wasn’t the one who knew it all. And, that the One who does know it all, knew me even better than I knew myself. And He still does! I’m not shocked anymore, but I sure have to laugh with Him sometimes when He reveals me.

Love you from Cafe du Mondieu

He Makes You Want To Sing!

Today’s message comes to us from Psalm 81. It’s a long one, in which you can see God admonishing His people, through Asaph. Verses 1 & 2 tell us: “Sing for joy to God our strength; make a joyful noise to the God of Jacob. Lift up a song, strike the tambourine, play the sweet-sounding harp and lyre.” (BSB) He is our strength. Let me tell you, I am living proof of that. I cannot tell you how, but by God’s grace and His hand, that I made it through some of the things I’ve come through. And every time, I come away with some new treasure or two, and an even deeper trust and stronger faith in Him. And, I can’t even express how much I love Him. He makes you want to sing; right in the midst of the storm, with the wind whipping around you, and the waves trying to swamp the boat.

I hope you’ll read the whole psalm. You can see God’s heart for us.

Love you from Cafe du Mondieu

That’s Not God’s Doing

Today’s message comes to us from Psalm 80, which is a lamentation. “Woe is us; woe is us!” “Why, God, why?!”

Verses 6 & 7 catch my attention: “You make us contend with our neighbors; our enemies mock us. Restore us, O God of Hosts, and cause Your face to shine upon us, that we may be saved.”

I’m so sorry to have to tell you this. But, God’s not the one doing the contending. We are. 1st Peter, chapter 2 is a good one to read regarding this. (Hebrews 12:14) tells us to “strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” (Psalm 34:14) tells us to “turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.” (Romans 14:19) “So then, let us pursue what leads to peace and to mutual edification.”

Yes, it is soooo much easier said than done! No, not every encounter, and especially not every confrontation is going to end well. But, the odds are stacked in our favor; not against us. You see, Jesus said, “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.” He also said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” That means the instant you choose to pursue peace, you are blessed. The Holy Spirit will give you the words you need to say, guide you as to what you need to do, and comfort you until you remember your joy. Actually, that joy wells up as you pursue peace; even if it’s just the peace within after the encounter or confrontation.

It is absolutely crucial that we do see God’s face shining upon us. That face gives us a reflection of who we are, and are striving to be…Aah, don’t know what happened but the keyboard quit working before I could finish my post. Dealing with a very sore head, I’m not too quick on the draw the last couple of days. Of course, by the time I figured out all I needed to do was reset the computer by turning it off and back on, it was time to go. I apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

Back to seeing God’s face shine on us…Every time we praise and worship the LORD/Lord, we’re drawing near to Him. When you see a rose begin to bud, you’re seeing God’s face. When you look into the eyes of a baby, you’re seeing God’s face shining on you. Everything beautiful is God’s face shining on us. Every moment of peace, of love, of happy laughter, of simple progress (better today than it was yesterday), is seeing God’s face shine on us. Find time to look for it. Jesus said, “Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven.” When we do, we’re sure to find God, smiling lovingly down on us as we come.

Love you from Cafe du Mondieu

In Every Storm

Today’s message comes to us from Psalm 79. It is also a long one, recounting a lot of things God’s people have had to suffer. I like the very last verse. “But we your people, the sheep of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise.” (ESV) Hallelujah! If you woke up today with another chance to do things a little differently, you’re blessed!

I will praise you in this storm, Jesus! I will praise you in every storm! Thank you, Casting Crowns!

Love you from Cafe du Mondieu

Teach Your Children

I bet you’re all wondering where I went. I’m sorry; I was attacked midweek last week, suffered a head injury, and needed to take a couple of days to rest. This all happened on the Nellis Bus going North, in the evening. You people think your little “pest control” devices, or “dog whistles” are funny. They’re not! They’re cowardly, heinous, and will get you life in prison. You can cause a stroke or heart attack with those, and kill someone. My face is a little puffy, and I’ve got a bit of a shiner, but I think I’ll live. The picture below is me in my new summer hat; taken just a day or so before.

Today’s message comes to us from Psalm 78. I’m going to use the first four verses of it. It’s a very long Psalm, recounting a lot of history. When you get the chance, I hope you’ll read it for yourselves.

“Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth! I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.” (ESV) This sends me straight to the gospels and Jesus. He is the Word, made flesh.

I used to tell my children that Jesus was going to make their medicine work, when I had to give them medication. Thankfully, we didn’t have but short bouts of flu or an ear infection or two while they were growing up. When my car needed work on the carburetor, and my dad (my mechanic) couldn’t get to it for awhile, my oldest daughter learned the value and power of prayer. It never failed that clunker would be flooded and I’d pray, “Lord, please make the car start.” Sure enough, I’d turn the key again, and “vroom,” it would turn right over. My daughter was riding with her aunt one day, and auntie’s car didn’t want to start up. My daughter asked her if she wanted her to pray, because Mommy always does, and it works. LOL See, this is stuff that we don’t even realize we’re teaching our children when we’re doing it. Imagine how important it is to teach your child the promises of God, who he, or she is in Christ, and the standards and boundaries that God has put in place for us. What we neglect to tell and to teach our children, is like giving them a bowl of Spaghetti, and not giving them the fork or spoon to eat with.

There’s a saying that we live what we learn. In light of the recent attack on me, which includes the person who drove by this morning and yelled that remark out the window at me, I have to wonder: What did you learn? Who raised you and forgot to give you your fork or spoon? And what did they feed you? What are we feeding our children? What are we teaching them, either directly, or indirectly? Imagine if all we taught our children was to love, to be kind, considerate, and to do good things. Imagine if everyone chose to do the good thing, instead of the bad?

Love you from Cafe du Mondieu

Saturday Silly – May 15, 2021

I heard a couple of people on the bus recently, discussing the Marijauna legalization and some of the problems we have now due to that. One lady said, “They’re smoking that weed everywhere now! They don’t care where they’re at when they do! You can’t go anywhere and you smell it!” Her male friend said, “I know; you don’t even have to buy it anymore. Just walk by somebody smoking it; you can get high for free!”

I thought to myself, “Boy that’s true! The other day, some guys were on the corner by the dispensary, smoking their weed. I said, “Excuse me three times to the same tree there. It’s a good thing that when I went by the fourth time, I noticed it was a tree; I was beginning to think I had a stalker!”

Love you from Cafe du Mondieu

Meditate On Your Victories

Today’s message comes to us from Psalm 77. The psalm speaks of troubled times, when you don’t see God working on your behalf. I think, when think we’ve gone too far, or when we wait till it’s too late (it never is), we have a hard time seeing that God is right there with us. Jesus promised He would never leave us or forsake us, and that He’ll be with us always. When we’ve gotten too far into the trouble, or even when it’s just been so dark for so long, we might be unsure about His love. Turn to Him anyway. Praise Him anyway. He’s there, and it’s that praise, and that turning, that surrendering yourself to Him, that takes the scales off of your eyes.

Verses 10-15 speak of stirring ours faith up by recounting God’s work in and around our previous victories. “

Then I said, “I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders; you have made known your might among the peoples. You with your arm redeemed your people,
the children of Jacob and Joseph.” (ESV) As I’ve said before, that redemption is for right here and now in your every day life. It’s not just redemption for eternal life. God can redeem your self-esteem, your faith, your peace, your joy, your discipline and perseverance, your sanity. I hope you’ll read the entire psalm for yourselves. It’s another great spiritual booster.

Love you from Cafe du Mondieu