Joy in the Journey

But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. Jeremiah 17:7-8   How simple is the life of that tree. It is planted safely at the edge of the stream. The water is always there, in the blessed cool or the sweltering heat. The tree makes no effort to obtain the water. The tree simply stands beside the water and waits. Further, that same tree does not wring its branches each year and wonder if this will be the year that no fruit grows. Most of us are so different from that tree.   We stand beside the Lord, a position that ensures us love, protection, freedom and still we fret and worry. How will feed our family? What if… and here you can add just about anything you want because we what if ourselves senseless. We

But those that hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:31   Some days life just feels hard. The more we try the less we accomplish. Everywhere we turn we meet adversity. The pain or aggravation of that adversity can cause us to miss out on the blessings and the joy of life, leaving us empty and edgy. At those times in life when putting one foot in front of the other just seems impossible we need to remember that we can soar on eagles wings. We can fly high above our pain and problems. We can go to a place where that pain cannot reach us.           The last few years I have had quite a mixed bag of blessings and challenges. Many of the blessings have come from releasing the challenges to God. I have been able to accomplish things I thought impossible by simply understanding that they weren’t mine to accomplish.           Sometimes we feel as if the weight