" It's not the existence of these things in our lives that's the problem. It's our anxiety about them that sabotages our lives...We are to seek first the kingdom, and one of the enemy's greatest strategies is to derail you from seeking God's kingdom. How? By filling you with anxiety. Anxiety is a gateway to many other sins".

Texas weather has been a little crazy this summer to say the least. There's been drought as usual and then terrible flooding in our area again, and it's hard to keep up with its moodiness.  A few weeks ago I was sitting out on the back porch reading and watching the rain as it poured down. In the center of the back yard there is a trellace/arch covered in grape vines. For months it was so dry, the vines fried to a crisp and nearly disappeared, leaving only the wooden framework it rested on. It looked like there was no hope for them to come back. After waiting a while I quit paying attention to it as I walked by. As I sat there in the rain that day, I realized the vines I'd felt like I waited an eternity to grow back with no progress, we're so full and green and thick that it looked as if the frame under it would break as the rain poured down on them. I could only think about our lives and sit in thankfulness at this parallel and how God makes everything beautiful in its own time and that each "season" is just that. Only a season. Some short and others little longer. We all have times of drought and abundance. Sometimes our hearts are in despair with the season we are in and other times we just give up because we feel like that tough season of what looks like fruitlessness (is that even a word?), waiting, or healing seems like an eternity. I think I needed the reminder of seeing the overflowing vines that day. Sometimes God has to remind my heart of what I already know in my head. I have so much to be thankful for and am thankful for the season I'm in simply because God has me here. Life ebbs and flows but our faith in Jesus and what he's done doesn't have to. Jesus is the same as he was and always will be, and God brings seasons and their unique beauty according to His will. Just because we think we don't see fruit during a certain season doesn't mean that it's true. Gods ways and the way he sees things are much higher that we see them. I really believe we are always growing, no matter the season we are in when we are seeking the Lord. God makes each season sweet when we are following Him and our obedience is not in vain

He Has Made Everything Beautiful in its Time

17 Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior.

19 The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    he enables me to tread on the heights.

Live Hapalee

I've opened a shop! This is was made to be a creative outlet and to help others. Part of every item purchased will go to the organization of the month. I will be doing mercy ships (shocker!)  for a while since it's only the beginning and sales will need to take some time to build! Here is a link!

From Streams in the Desert April 22:


He knows the way that I take (Job 23:10).

Believer! What a glorious assurance! This way of thine--this, it may be, a crooked, mysterious, tangled way--this way of trial and tears. "He knoweth it." The furnace seven times heated--He lighted it. There is an Almighty Guide knowing and directing our footsteps, whether it be to the bitter Marah pool, or to the joy and refreshment of Elim.

That way, dark to the Egyptians, has its pillar of cloud and fire for His own Israel. The furnace is hot; but not only can we trust the hand that kindles it, but we have the assurance that the fires are lighted not to consume, but to refine; and that when the refining process is completed (no sooner--no later) He brings His people forth as gold. 

When they think Him least near, He is often nearest. "When my spirit was overwhelmed, then thou knewest my path." Do we know of ONE brighter than the brightest radiance of the visible sun, visiting our chamber with the first waking beam of the morning; an eye of infinite tenderness and compassion following us throughout the day, knowing the way that we take?

The world, in its cold vocabulary in the hour of adversity, speaks of "Providence"--"the will of Providence"--"the strokes of Providence." PROVIDENCE! what is that? Why dethrone a living, directing God from the sovereignty of His own earth? Why substitute an inanimate, death-like abstraction, in place of an acting, controlling, personal Jehovah?

How it would take the sting from many a goading trial, to see what Job saw (in his hour of aggravated woe, when every earthly hope lay prostrate at his feet)--no hand but the Divine. He saw that hand behind the gleaming swords of the Sabeans--he saw it behind the lightning flash--he saw it giving wings to the careening tempest--he saw it in the awful silence of his rifled home.

"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!" Thus seeing God in everything, his faith reached its climax when this once powerful prince of the desert, seated on his bed of ashes, could say, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him."
--Macduff